NEED $210 by Monday morning for dog cremation – Donations

[Junction Joe]

If I understand correctly, the poster was asking for $210, part of which is to pay for an urn and urn necklace. I am curious what the WS Blog’s policy is regarding members posting requests for donations that would normally be considered personal expenditures.

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[HappyOnAlki]

Junction Joe, I think it’s interesting that you would even care.

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[Halyn]

Actually, Joe has a point. When I first saw this thread title, my inner eyebrow went up and I thought “Hmmm.” I’ve lost a few pets, and I’ve never been asked to pay for the cremation–What’s the vet going to do, not dipose of the animal’s remains if you don’t pay? I have known vets who charge if you want a single cremation of only your pet, but most pet crematoriums will waive the fee for a mass cremation, or the vet eats the cost since they aren’t charged a great deal by the crematorium. Then I read the thread. It starts off asking for donations for a cremation. Well, see above…that’s not quite kosher. But fine, maybe things have changed, it’s been a few years (knock wood) since I’ve lost a pet.
Then a post mentions an urn and/or a necklace. Ahh. Now it makes sense. The poster is asking for donations to buy a memento. Not the sort of thing I would donate to, or that I would ask strangers to pay for, but to each their own. Still, that price seemed high to me, so I checked in with a vet friend, who told me their clinic will give the ashes to the pet owner for free, will give the owner a paw print clay thing for 10 dollars, and the crematorium they use charges between 40 and 70 dollars for urns, depending on size and style.
Then a little further into the thread, there seems to be confusion about whether money was actually donated and who it went to, then suddenly the call for donations is closed because it’s been paid in full.
I don’t like to judge, and if you want to give away your money without a thought to whether the cause is legitimate or genuine, that’s your business. But there’s odd stuff in this thread, and there’s nothing wrong with being a little bit skeptical when people ask for money for things that are not strict necessities. Junction Joe could have been nicer in his original post, but being skeptical is not a crime. When it comes to the internet, it’s stupid not to have a little bit of caution.

Finally, to the OP. It absolutely sucks to lose an animal you love. I’m sorry for your loss.

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[Bisker16]

I’m with Halyn and Junction Joe, although I’m sorry for her loss, we all have expenses, it’s like people asking for their kids ‘whatever’ lessons on gofundme..it’s a personal expense.

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[littlebrowndog]

Wow, folks, are you all so confident in your finances and health that you simply cannot imagine a scenario in which you might be bankrupted due to a crisis through no fault of your own? And left only with the companionship of a beloved pet and then suddenly your pet had a crisis? You say everybody should plan for such possibilities? I have 3 dogs, pet insurance, disability insurance, a pet trust to pay for their care if I outlive them—and enough experience with people dealing with misfortunes that I can still visualize scenarios in which I could end up in similar straits. Remember karma.

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[littlebrowndog]

Correction: pet trust for if my dogs outlive me.

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[Bisker16]

I hear you littlebrowndog, really, I’m just saying there’s a difference between what is being asked and someone’s house that has burned down and has nothing or a persons medical care that has left them bankrupt. That, to me is a ‘crisis’. This situation is not a ‘crisis’, it’s unfortunate. Our pet had to have surgery that was not in our budget, it cost 800.00, it’s part of the deal when you own a pet.

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[JanS]

OMFG…have you never had to choke down your pride and ask for help? You have no idea what it took for this woman to ask that./. I am ashamed at your uncompassionate “privileged” attitudes. We should be better than looking down our noses and just saying “deal”.

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[Junction Joe]

Nope. Certainly not privileged, but I do take full responsibility for personal consumption and nonessential expenditures. I would never ask a stranger to pay for a pet urn and urn necklace. This is not an emergency that requires solitation to the community. Requests like this take away from the real emergency needs that are out there.

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[JoB]

ok.. i know i am not hallucinating that i posted here earlier.. or that i saw my post..

so i am guessing it isn’t ok for me to point out that it isn’t ok for you to come on here and second guess other people’s choices to help another human being.

i’m not sure why it’s not ok.. since it’s obviously ok to say that someone is not “deserving” of help…. those posts have stood the test of ….. ? So it’s ok to talk smack.

but it’s not ok to point out that people talking smack are talking smack?

sheesh!

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[JoB]

ok.. good case of post surgical muddle..
i posted my comment on the other thread..
operator error indeed.. and i am the operator who errored.

“i don’t know why what i posted earlier didn’t show up..but i will post it again… as best i can. I am in a bit of a post surgery muddle.

i can understand why some of you are sceptical of this OP. first she asks for donations for pet care and then for additional donations for cremation.. literally the same day… and she is less than appreciative or patient with the speed of the help she thinks she should be getting from volunteer agencies… totally forgetting that volunteer agencies are run by volunteers who have life crisis of their own to deal with…

watching her process unfold wasn’t particularly attractive… but then.. people are not at their most attractive or patient when they are dealing with what they see as overwhelming circumstances.. so.. who knows?

What i can’t get is why anyone would come onto the forum to belittle people who made the choice to give.

it’s not as though belittling those who make a different choice than you do verifies the accuracy of your own choice and it sure as heck doesn’t make you look like the better person.

every time we are asked to give to another.. even if we think we know them well.. we run the risk of feeling taken in.. .perhaps only because they didn’t make the choices with their funds that we would have wanted them to make.. but also perhaps because they scammed us big time.

that’s the nature of the beast. If you are kind some people will take advantage of you.

but.. that’s the choice all of us who choose to give make every time we give… to give in spite of the very real risk that we could end up feeling taken advantage of…

if you don’t want to make that choice, don’t make it.. but don’t think that your choice entitles you to the right to judge what we do with our money for people we may or may not know… in circumstances we may or may not know more about than you do.

it doesn’t.

thank goodness that raining on everyone else’s parade won’t change the choices their heart makes when they encounter a fellow human being in trouble…

and who knows.. at the end of the day you might be eternally grateful that it didn’t.
none of us ever knows when we will need help.”

headed back to bed without posting more :(

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by JoB.

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[JKB]

Wow, a lot of rubbish on this one. If the OP is a scam, then ‘bleep you’ is about the only answer.

Otherwise it’s more kindly: ‘here you go’, ‘sorry I cannot’, or simply ‘no’ all seem reasonable.

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[Junction Joe]

Oops JoB, looks like you misread the posts. Nowhere did I or anyone else criticize or “belittle” anyone for donating. After you are rested you might want to reread the thread more carefully.

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[JoB]

Junction Joe..

The help had already been delivered..
Who exactly was your target if not the people who chose to suspend their risk and help the OP?

You made your personal choice about this OP and her request…
and i for one am more than glad to honor your right to that choice.
i make those choices each and every time someone asks for my help.

what i have a problem with is the thinking that your choice should dictate the choices of others…

and i am thinking that if you were the one being criticized for your generosity…
you would have a similar problem ..

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by JoB.

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[Junction Joe]

Don’t over-think it.

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[JoB]

sorry joe.. i don’t think i am overthinking this
but i wish you would think more about it..

sorry.. just in case you saw this before i edited it…i don’t mean to be a rude ass..
but here’s the deal..

this same thing happens every time that a request for assistance is posted here..

first the people who are willing to help respond
then someone responds with how bogus all of this is
then someone asks whether or not this is all a fraud
then someone decides to tell the rest of us how stupid we are that we couldn’t figure out what was obvious…

meanwhile.. people who really need our help right now are unwilling to have their story told here because they are afraid of these kinds of reactions to a simple request..

God forbid that people who need help should do or say anything that someone else could possibly criticize them for.. because it apparently isn’t enough to simply make a choice whether or not to help them… if “you” have any doubt .. “you” must share it with everyone else so that person can be publicly shamed.

i put “you” in quotes because in this case you are the one doubling down on this conversation but you are by no means the only individual who follows that pattern…

however.. you might be the one who recognizes that it could be an unhealthy pattern and helps put a stop to it… I hope so.

i know someone right now who actually needs some help but is unwilling to brave the backlash … and that breaks my heart because i know there are people in this community who would help…
and she needs help… help she is unlikely to get …

now do you get why i don’t think i am over-thinking this?
this does irreparable harm…
and doesn’t stop those who would take advantage of the generosity of others…

i can’t see the upside

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by JoB.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by JoB.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by JoB.

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[Junction Joe]

Yes, I think it is a complete joke that someone would post a request for money to pay for a dog urn and urn necklace. This is not an emergency that requires financial support of the community–this is known as a personal expenditure. Good for you supporting a stranger and feeling good about it. Personally, I think requests like these take away from real community needs…..medical emergencies, child in the hospital, medication, diapers, formula, school supplies, food, elderly in need of transportation, homelessness, etc.

I also find it odd that the person on the receiving end got her $210 and has never been heard from since. Smells like a scam.

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[JoB]

show me where this person posted a request for money to pay for a dog urn and dog necklace.

the reality is that the crematorium took more donations than she needed.. and she thought she might use those to purchase a memorial for her pet.

Is that the choice i would have made? Probably not. And to be honest i have seen enough people in need publicly trashed here on the forum for no other reason that someone took something they said out of context and shamed them with it that i would have kept my mouth shut…

which is a shame because some people find the fact that she wants to wear a bit of her pet’s ash as a way to keep them closer heartwarming…

i would say that is neither here nor there.. but i would be wrong.

Anyway.. i would point out that we don’t know how the crematorium handled that fund… what options they gave her.

Think of this as a gift certificate. Sometimes when you get one the store insists that you spend every penny of that certificate with them.. some give you change.

if her option was use the fund or let the balance go to the crematorium…

would you have felt better if she had accepted a rock “headstone” for her pet?

I was sent one of those by a well meaning vet on the death of my dog and i don’t know what to do with it.. right now it is face down in a flowerpot which seems wrong but it seems more wrong to have it face up…

So.. what business is it of yours how she used excess funds donated to her to cremate her pet?

as for your last bits of judgment…

“Personally, I think requests like these take away from real community needs…..medical emergencies, child in the hospital, medication, diapers, formula, school supplies, food, elderly in need of transportation, homelessness, etc.”

you think she had no right to ask for help

“I also find it odd that the person on the receiving end got her $210 and has never been heard from since. Smells like a scam.”

and you think she’s a scam artist..

tell me Junction Joe.. if we talked about you the way you talked about her..
would you show up here? I am guessing not.

I am sorry that you aren’t the person who will put a stop to this kind of public shaming…
i had hopes there for a minute.

oh well.. that won’t stop me or anyone else like me who cares more about people than about appearances from helping the next person we encounter who asks for our help.

Heck.. being “burned” by some people who are looking for what they can get .. whether they need it or not won’t stop me or anyone else like me from helping the next person we encounter who asks for our help.

it’s the risk we know we take when we step up to help… sooner or later if you help enough people you are going to get “burned”. Though to be honest, unless you start some kind of foundation where the numbers make it a crap shoot.. that person who “burns’ you is far more likely to be someone you thought you knew well.

heck Joe.. we’d even help you if you asked for help…

It’s too bad you don’t get that.. but it sure is obvious that you don’t.

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[Sue]

As one of the people who donated, I wanted to clarify some things.

First, OP did not receive the $ personally. All money was either donated directly to the crematorium (as I did) or Furry Faces (F3) (and, in the earlier thread, to the vet for medical care before the dog passed). The only money OP would have received personally is if someone took them up on the sale of personal items to cover medical bills. Once the crematorium received the $210 for the cost of the cremation, they did not take extra donations in OP’s name. F3, being a volunteer organization, did not immediately credit the donations that came in online by one or two people, and that came to an extra $35 or so. OP assumed she would get those too, and then suggested the urn necklace as a way to spend it (as opposed to pocketing the money). However, if you read the threads, it turns out that OP was NOT going to receive the extra $35 from F3. At no time did OP request or receive donations personally for any extras.

Honestly, I trust a request like this one more than ones through gofundme and similar sites. I googled the crematorium, confirmed the # was the same as the one that was posted, spoke to an actual employee and donated money for the account. With the crowdfunding sites, the reality is that they can say they need money for bills and then instead spend it on a vacation. And F3 is a long-time organization that helps people out with bills, and I doubt very much they are simply handing out cash, but are instead dealing with the vets and other vendors.

In the end, people don’t have to believe every request that comes to them, and don’t have to donate. However, if it is true, and someone lost their treasured pet after trying to get medical care, and then didn’t have the money to even cremate them, this is incredibly sad and should probably be treated with respect and decency, not a witch hunt and criticism and shame. Just because OP isn’t posting here doesn’t mean they are not reading things and “here” anyway – I don’t post the way I used to, but I read all the time.

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[littlebrowndog]

JoB and Sue, right on. That’s all, right on.

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[miws]

Echoing what littlebrowndog said.

I had a long-ish response to this last weekend, and after two attempts at that time, and then another a few days later after JoB posted she was having trouble posting, I tried again. I have a hunch that since I typed it up in Grammarly, and tried to C&P it to here, the spam filter may have thought it was spam, what with a bunch of text being dumped into the reply box at once. WSB was busy with Summerfest last weekend, and playing catch-up ever since so I didn’t bother asking them to look for it.

Anyway, many of the points I was trying to make, including the possibility that the OP may be reading this, have been made since I first composed my comment.

I just don’t understand the obsession of Junction Joe, on what at the very least may have been, but I tend to believe actually was, a sincere request for help, and that ended in a very heartbreaking situation for somebody.

Mike

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[Junction Joe]

Oh

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[JanS]

reading this…it’s all just very sad…and it makes me want to never, ever meet junction joe…and that’s sad, because we are community. I will say this…from personal experience…you are damned if you do…and damned if you don’t..:(

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[Bonnie]

Just clicked on this thread and appalled by where this has gone. This is a thread that was created after someone asked for help SELLING HER OWN STUFF for the vet bills for her dog. Then her dog passed away and she is cremating her dog. Please people, if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it at all. Being rude behind a fake name is not okay. If you don’t believe the woman don’t respond, simply report it to WSB. It’s their forum, they can decide if it should be here.

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[Junction Joe]

Yes, we are all entitled to our own opinions on the blog. And my opinion is that an overpriced animal cremation, urn, and urn necklace do not represent an emergency worthy of solitation to the community. The least she could have done before asking for money is to make sure the cost was reasonable. $210 is exhorbatant by any local vetraniarn standards.

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