The Day Rescue Broke Me: A Hard Truth About Helping Too Much

Amy Castro (00:00.29)
You're exhausted. You're doing everything you can. And still it feels like it's never enough. If you've ever felt the weight of trying to rescue just one more animal, I'm sharing a truth most rescuers won't say out loud and why I'm redefining my role within rescue without walking away entirely.

Amy Castro (00:22.658)
Hey there and welcome to Muddy Paws and Hairballs, the podcast where we talk honestly about what it really means to live with and love animals. No sugar coating, no fluff, just real talk from someone who's been in the trenches. I'm your host, Amy Castro, and today's episode, well, it's personal. Maybe the most personal one I've ever done. After years of fostering more than 4,000 animals, running a rescue, and living a life completely consumed by this work, I'm making a shift.

But before anyone asks and rumors start flying, Starlight Outreach and Rescue is not shutting down. The organization is staying open and I'm still gonna be its president. But I'm transitioning into a new role, leading from a distance instead of on the front lines. I'm gonna step away from the chaos and into clarity and I wanna walk you through how I got here and why this might be the best thing I've ever done for myself and for the animals that I really care about. So let's start where it all began to shift for me.

We rarely talk about this in the rescue world, at least not out loud and not in our social media posts, but it is a fact. Saying yes to one animal often means saying no to another, or maybe several others. I used to say yes constantly. I thought that's what it meant to be a good rescuer, but I've learned that every yes has a cost, whether it's time, energy, sleep, my sanity, and often the cost is paid by the animals that you're trying to help.

One example that changed my perspective was Sassy, who I currently have. She's a blind pit bull who was found lying in the street, left for dead, and I couldn't say no to the person who found her. And she's been with us for over two years. I love her and I don't regret taking her in, but her needs are very specific. That one, yes, closed the door for dozens of others. And that's when it hit me. Rescue can't be just about emotion. It has to be balanced. It has to be balanced.

with strategy and sustainability, which leads me to the next realization. It wasn't just hard logistics that wore me down in rescue. It was the emotional toll of facing impossible decisions over and over and over, from behavioral euthanasias to economic euthanasia and everything in between. Add to that having to combat people who want to try to save everything, perhaps just to prove they can. Here's just a quick example. So,

Amy Castro (02:51.627)
We took in a paralyzed cat. The cat could not urinate on its own, but somebody, the finder, wanted to prove that they could care for him. And I had to ask myself, is this really what's in the best interest of this poor cat, or is it more about what the person wants to feel about themselves? We chose euthanasia because sometimes that truly is the kindest and most responsible choice, and the person was not happy. And that experience forced me to confront something we rarely admit in this space.

the Savior complex, the way we tie our value to how much we suffer or sacrifice for the animals in our care. The urge to be seen as noble, even when what we're doing may not actually serve the animal. But here's the truth. Animals do not need us to be martyrs. They need us to be thoughtful, ethical, and clear-headed. And I had to get really honest about how often I teetered on the edge between logic and emotion, heroics,

and how a bad outcome plays out on social media. Still, even knowing all that, I kept going until one last straw finally forced me to say enough. And that straw was Hurricane Barrel. Wasn't even a big storm compared to some of the storms that we've weathered. But when I found myself out in the storm trying to protect the animals, I had horses standing in ankle-deep water, the kittens in my isolation building had diarrhea and ringworm.

And by the way, our isolation building is a glorified shed that's held to the ground by, I think, four straps. And I thought at any moment when I was out there caring for them, we were just gonna fly away like Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. And add to that, our barn door kept trying to fly off. And I'm not kidding you when I say that my daughter and I literally risked our lives trying to keep that thing from tearing away from the building and trying to strap it down. And that day,

I just broke. I sat down on the ground in the middle of the storm and started to cry at the state of my life and I said, I'm done. But what's crazy is that really wasn't the real breaking point. The truth is there had been so many signs before that. Less than two years after buying the rescue ranch in 2018, and it was my dream, I will admit, my husband died of COVID, but I didn't stop. I kept rescuing. In fact, we rescued more animals in 2020 than any year prior.

Amy Castro (05:18.605)
We kind of went crazy. And beyond the craziness of the sheer number of animals we took in that year, the fact that my daughter and I ran an online fundraiser from our sick beds as we were recovering from COVID should have said that we were having sickness more than just physical. Then, a year to the day that my husband died, I found out I had cancer. I had surgery. I had radiation. And guess what? Kept going all throughout. And I don't say this

to say, look at her, she's awesome, or for you to feel bad for me. At some point, I really realized that this work was not coming from a healthy place. It had kind of become a sick compulsion. And that is not sustainable, not for me, not for my family, and definitely not for the animals. So what do you do when your dream becomes your breaking point? Well, you can walk away completely, or you redefine what the dream looks like. And let me say again,

Very clearly, I'm not walking away from Starlight Outreach and Rescue, and I'm not walking away from rescue. But I am stepping out of the chaos and into a more intentional place. The rescue is becoming leaner and more focused, and we're going back to being foster-based. I am not gonna be here to turn my home into a shelter. No more emergency medical treatments on my kitchen counter. No more burnout disguised as bravery. Instead, I'm gonna prioritize

education, I'm going to lean on my volunteers and they're going to be the core or the base of whether we say yes to bringing in an animal or we don't. I'm going to focus on advocacy and focusing on helping a few animals at a time and doing it right. I also really want to amplify voices who are doing ethical rescue work. You've probably heard me say it a few times that the no kill movement, although well-intentioned, is not working. It is broken.

And we are going to have some important conversations on this podcast about that. Like one I'll be having next week with Daniel Ettinger from the Keep It Humane podcast. He and I are going to dig into why the no kill movement is not working and in fact is hurting. And we're going to discuss smart sheltering and a better way forward for people and animals. So keep an eye out for that episode. And it's going to be airing Sunday, which will be our new release dates every Sunday, April 26th.

Amy Castro (07:41.963)
That episode's gonna challenge a lot of assumptions that many people in rescue have been working under. And I think it's probably gonna ruffle some feathers, but I don't give a shit. If I could go back in time and talk to the me who started all this, all full of hope and thinking I was gonna save the world, if I could talk to the person who looked at this seven acre piece of property as a dream rescue ranch, I'd say, don't try to carry it all. You don't have to.

You don't have to house every animal. You don't have to solve every problem. You don't have to say yes to every request. Because if you do, you're going to disappear. And then who's left to help?

So if you're still listening to this crazy episode, and especially if you just started out in rescue, or maybe you're deep in it and wondering how much longer you can keep going, please hear me. It's okay to care, but it's also okay to care with boundaries. You can fight for animals without setting yourself on fire and burning down your damn life.

This shift in my role, I have to say, is already bringing me peace, clarity, reduced stress, and some honesty that I haven't felt in years. And I hope that this conversation helps you feel a little more seen too, if you're a rescuer. And like I said, in an upcoming episode, I'll be talking with Daniel Lettinger about smart sheltering, what it is, how it works, and why I think it's gonna be the future of animal rescue. You're not gonna wanna miss that episode.

In the meantime, thank you for being here, for listening, for staying open to a better way forward, not just for animals, but for all of us too. And hey, go give your pets a big hug from all of us here at Muddy Paws and Hairballs. We'll see you next time.

Amy Castro (09:30.177)
Thanks for listening to Muddy Paws and Hairballs. Be sure to visit our website at MuddyPawsandHairballs.com for more resources and be sure to follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app so you'll never miss a show. And hey, if you like this show, text someone right now and say, I've got a podcast recommendation. You need to check the show out and tell them to listen and let you know what they think. Don't forget to tune in next week and every week for a brand new episode. And if you don't do anything else this week, give your pets a big hug from us.