Why is your companion an afterthought?

I hate the word “deadline.”

I really do. It sounds like something final, a line you cross and then there’s no going back. We hear it all the time. But not from editors or project managers – from people trying to give up their animals.

“I have a deadline. I’m moving by the end of the month.”

“My landlord gave me a deadline.”

“I need this dog gone by Friday.”

It’s a word that clutches the throat of rescue workers, because on the other end of that deadline is a life – a cat who has spent years sleeping beside you, a dog who knows your footsteps, a bonded pair of animals who don’t understand why everything they’ve ever known is crumbling. And now we are supposed to make room. Rearrange everything. In just a few short days. Sometimes less.

Here’s the truth people don’t want to hear: these so-called “deadlines” are almost always avoidable. They’re rarely surprises. A move doesn’t materialize overnight. A baby isn’t born without nine months of notice. A landlord doesn’t suddenly become allergic. These things build, slowly, with plenty of time to plan – but what people don’t want to plan for is the responsibility of their animal. It becomes easier to pass that burden off on someone else. A rescue. A shelter. Anyone but them.

It’s unfair. It’s infuriating. And it’s dangerous.

Because the truth is, we are full. Not metaphorically. Literally. We walk down halls of animals we’ve already made space for – animals abandoned in alleys, tied to fences, found shivering in dumpsters. Animals with no one else. So, when someone calls saying they need to surrender their animal by next week or “else,” we’re not working with flexibility – we’re working with trauma.

It needs to stop.

Animals are not objects you set down when life gets inconvenient. They are family. And if you are truly in crisis, there are steps – responsible, ethical steps – you can take to rehome them with compassion and care. But making your pet’s fate someone else’s emergency, giving a “deadline” and threatening euthanasia or abandonment when no one complies fast enough? That’s not love. That’s negligence.

So, yeah. I hate the word “deadline.” Because in rescue, it too often feels like a countdown to heartbreak. And until people start taking their commitments seriously – until we stop treating animals like temporary arrangements – we’ll keep writing blog entries like this, wishing people had just done better. Because they could have. They still can.