You always look for the win-win situation in charity work, and in the two of forty years AB has been involved they did a stellar job 50% of the time and dropped the ball 50%. I'm just going with the better average.

Except your own evidence shows you that who gets the contract weighs (yes in this country disproportionately) on what and how things get done.

But no other issues are involved at the moment.Animal Care IS the remit of the Vets Assoc. They HAVE said they will handle it. They DO have other options besides the inflexible Animal Balance and I (already capitalised) for one can't wait to hear them.

I know you can't swing a cat in this country without hitting a shady or ineffective person, but where we do concentrate all of our energy and vigour and morals is in opposition to anything and everything! 1 out of 2 of us, all the time, on any matter. So even though it seems the right thing to do is to withdraw support and criticise, I'm asking again to let them handle it. They might surprise us and allow Animal Balance back to the negotiating table (without the strong-arming tactics)

It is always a matter of who does it, as it is the other side of the same coin. Animal Balance's decision to walk away from negotiations means that locals doubt the judgement of the Bahamian vets when any number of combinations including using Caribbean vets/animal care operations or PETA or me or you can be contrived to fix the problem, it doesn't make me doubt their judgement or their skill and it certainly doesn't make me liken them to a greedy, proud, potcake!

What they are doing with the money is stabilising the local charitable operation in the face of opposition when most have no concern anyway. Where do they get the money for their year-round charitable operation except from the same pot of hard-earned money for potcakes? Now that Animal Balance has left the negotiating table there is room for (Bahamians or foreigners I really don't care who) another party to sit down and talk efficiency. It's not over because Animal Balance is over! But who doubts it's up to Bahamian Vets to manage Bahamian animal care issues? With or without foreign aid?

And that was set to happen except they wanted a portion of the funds raised to do the work to do even more charitable work and the foreign vets said no just volunteer and they have said repeatedly it was not they that walked away. They didn't ask anyone to stay away and now that the negotiations have fallen apart they have said they will handle it themselves and were I guess about to re-group but now have to fight their way through this shitstorm when I don't know about you but it seems to me they are good people trying to do good work. There's more than one way to skin a cat (other than skinning cats!)

This has always been a negotiation between two parties about the business of animal welfare in the Bahamas, neither party was off to Sawgrass for the shopping!

The Vets Assoc asked for cash for their involvement to sustain their charitable operation (which includes other essential services) an additional 50 weeks of the year and the Foreign Vets wanted the Bah vets as volunteers in their larger programme how anyone turned into villains is beyond me.

I understand how charities work and how hard thy work to make life better for all of us but the Bahamian Vets are being asked to give up the most (out of all of us Bahamians) and then be expected to manage animal welfare once the foreigners have left and the funds have been exhausted which is a monumental task given that a lot of people would prefer that the funds raised just be used to destroy the animals.

After you've bled in your charitable efforts people expect you to accept the pain of a job well done as payment and it seems the only way to not be criticised for mis-management of charitable operations is to not get involved!

I hope you make it back to the negotiating table, but if you don't I hope you can still manage to wish the Bahamian Vets well in however they manage to work it out.

and I felt it fair to express MY opinion when there are people commenting who think the Vets shouldn't be allowed to breed and that they are bum-sniffing potcakes!

What part?

When you walked away from (botched) the negotiations you took yourself out of partnership with the charitable organisation here and put yourself in competition with them. They set their base price and while yours is cheaper there is almost never an instance where we can compete with the US/world on price. I understand that charities have to fiercely guard their bottom line because the money is the hardest to come by but that is what they were doing as well. For all those who misunderstand (I hope I'm not one of them) this is not the for profit business of the Vets assoc. involved it is the charitable operation of the Vets assoc involved; same people very different financial statements and time management but the foreign Vets understand this perfectly well when they too go back to their day jobs.

Was it possible to pay their price since everybody has acknowledged that they had less time to give and do a considerably smaller volume? Or capped the numbers they did at $50 or capped the numbers at $50 out of a guaranteed X amount.? Or offer something of interest to them in exchange for their charitable effort? Instead, you've said 'they left us no choice but to walk away' after one round of negotiations and lost out on the opportunity to be involved and lost out on the opportunity to raise funds in an area of concentrated wealth, and then you go to the public for this pity party and caused this dramorama and now everyone (yourself included) is covered in this stink.

They may need to draft outside help to fix the problem that may in fact be true but they may also need a more congruent partnership.

In the meantime what would be useful for the public instead of the blame game is sound advice on how to live side by side with this problem until it comes under control? What does one do when one encounters a pack of strays? Is there anything a child could do? What is on the market in the way of dog repellent? It is devastating when someone, especially a child, is hurt by an animal.

IT mostly has to do with your extreme interpretation of my argument, if you don't want to waste time then neither do I but when you framed your previous argument to suggest you required a basic understanding of proportional investment I took the time to explain my position.

Squarely on topic 50 times the price is hyperbole, the matter of supplies is from what I gather where the negotiations broke down and the partnership split (see my earlier post on 1 of the many ways those negotiations could have gone). The Vet assoc decided to keep calm and carry on with the objective to spay and neuter as many strays as possible (not an unfamiliar situation even where charitable businesses are concerned). It was after that this issue grew so many other legs and turned into this monster. Now it seems that they are being force-fed the foreign supplies because they are so much cheaper when in fact they do not propose to fund any of the other needs of the strays in year round concern and care and as much as this issue affects the entire nation, they offer no assistance in the professional development of Bahamian professionals in animal care.

I believed them when they said they needed help before I believe them when they say they don't need the help now. I wouldn't care if they ask for help later. I do know that this criticism is already amounting to more work for them and if the public would rather stay in opposition than get behind THEIR decision then the public would rather see them fail. I would like to see the project succeed and as the Vets have challenged themselves to make it succeed then I would like to see the Vets succeed.

To change my mind I would require intimate knowledge of the negotiations, the suppliers, the financials (private and charitable) and possibly new developments in vet science to determine if the most efficient surgical methods are being employed.

But them that would make me a veterinary professional so instead I trust them first and reserve judgement