Why We Will Never Cross That Line

There comes a point where you have to decide what kind of organisation you want to be.

For me, that decision has become clearer over the last year than it has ever been before. I’ve found myself watching more and more animal welfare videos that leave me feeling uncomfortable, not because I don’t care about the animals, but because I come away with the feeling that I’ve been led somewhere emotionally rather than allowed to arrive there myself.

Perhaps that sounds like an odd thing to say when I spend so much of my life trying to encourage people to care about dogs. Surely emotion is exactly what we want?

Yes, but only if it belongs to the dog.

I’ve worked in animal welfare long enough to know what genuine emergencies look like. I’ve seen dogs with embedded collars that had disappeared beneath their skin because they were put on as puppies and never removed. I’ve seen catastrophic road traffic injuries, gunshot wounds, horrific burns and dogs whose lives genuinely did hang in the balance. I’ve waited for news that could go either way, and I’ve learned that real emergencies don’t need a soundtrack or carefully chosen words to make them heart breaking. They simply are.

Maybe that’s why I find myself reacting differently when I watch some of these videos. I hear phrases like “we were running out of time”, “he would have died”, “it was a fight to save his life”, and instead of becoming more emotional I find myself quietly questioning what I’m being told. Not because I don’t believe animals suffer, but because I know enough to recognise that there is a difference between suffering and imminent death.

Most people won’t see that distinction because why would they? They trust the person telling the story. They assume that if somebody says a dog would have died within hours then that statement is based on evidence. They don’t have the experience to question it, and I don’t think they should have to.

That is exactly why I believe we have a responsibility to get it right.

The more I think about it, the more I realise this isn’t really about videos at all. It’s about trust. Every time someone exaggerates, every time someone allows the story to become bigger than the reality, they ask people to place their emotions in something that isn’t entirely true. They may never know the difference, but we do.

I do.

And once you start accepting that as normal, where does it stop? If making one injury sound slightly worse helps a video reach another hundred thousand people, is that acceptable? If asking a frightened dog to repeat a moment creates a more powerful ending, is that acceptable? If editing a story so it feels more dramatic brings in more donations, does the outcome justify the means?

For me, the answer to every one of those questions is no.

Not because I don’t understand how social media works. I do. I’m probably more aware than most of how difficult it is for small organisations to be seen. I know how frustrating it is to watch thoughtful, honest work disappear into the algorithm while dramatic content spreads across the internet.

The difference is that I know where our line is.

We are rescuers. We document the lives of the dogs who come into our care because their stories matter, but those stories belong to them, not to us. They are not ours to rewrite, to embellish or to shape into something more dramatic than the truth. If Chip is frightened of his new wheels, then that is the story. If Spot simply wants to wander over and say good morning, then that is the story. If nothing extraordinary happens that day, then nothing extraordinary happens that day.

I’ve realised that I’d much rather somebody trust every word we publish than wonder, even for a moment, whether we’ve made something bigger than it really was.

Not long ago somebody left a comment on one of our articles thanking us because, they said, there is so much inaccurate information online that they only read Dog Desk Animal Action because they know they can trust us. I don’t think they realised what that meant to me, because if somebody asked me what I wanted this organisation to be known for, that would be my answer.

Not the biggest or the loudest. Not the most dramatic. The one people trust.

Because once trust is gone, it doesn’t matter how many views you have. Once people begin wondering where the truth ends and the storytelling begins, you’ve already lost the most valuable thing you ever had.

And for me, no amount of reach, no number of followers and no viral video will ever be worth that.