We Don't Know You

~by Venita, DCIN's founder and director

We don't know you. No we don't.

You have written to us on Facebook or through email, asking that DCIN give you money or supplies to care for your diabetic cat.

We would like to help keep Fluffy healthy, but we don't know you. We try to find out about you and Fluffy. We search Facebook and Google to learn about you. We look to see whether you and Fluffy are on an Internet forum for diabetic cats. We ask you questions. We evaluate your answers--both content and tone.


Some of you thoroughly answer our questions, and immediately join one of the Internet forums that is a requirement of our assistance program. You continue to tell us how you would do anything to get your beloved Fluffy healthy again and you thank us for being as concerned about Fluffy as you are.

Some of you answer our email but evade our direct questions. You may tell us why our program requirements would impose a hardship on you. You show little concern for Fluffy. In fact, sometimes you don't even mention Fluffy again except how Fluffy is an unbearable drain on your finances and energy.

Some of you don't respond to our queries, but you may come back in 6 weeks, 8 weeks, screaming that Fluffy is now very very sick and we HAVE to help you.

Some of you immediately respond that our questions invade your privacy and even suggest that there are state or Federal laws that protect you from such questions.

DCIN is a private non-profit organization. We raise donations from individuals who want to help the cats that we agree to help and those donors understand our parameters for choosing the cats and caregivers that we help. Those parameters are clearly described on our blog, on the same page that we sent you to when you asked for our help. We are not required by any state or Federal law to give any specific person/cat help, and we don't give help just because you ask for it. We are required by US tax law that permits DCIN its non-profit status to follow our stated mission in providing assistance.

To receive DCIN assistance, there must be a financial need, not just a need to not change one's daily routines (such as coffee houses and dates). DCIN is here so that people who receive our help don't have to surrender their diabetic cats to a shelter death or leave the cats untreated because the financial burden of Fluffy's care might mean they risk losing their homes or are unable to feed their families.

If you don't like DCIN's program requirements or the questions we ask, you and DCIN are not a good fit. There is no useful purpose served in you berating the DCIN program managers (all volunteers with huge hearts, by the way) with abusive emails or denigrating our program on the Internet. Those actions certainly aren't going to result in us slapping our foreheads and saying "Oh, shit, of course I owe Fluffy's Mom an apology and a bunch of DCIN money."

Bottom line, if you choose to come to DCIN for help, work with us by politely, thoroughly, and directly answering the questions we ask. Our focus is Fluffy, and we expect Fluffy (not your next Starbucks latte) also to be your focus.