Meet Eva Cross

We were lucky to catch up with Eva Cross recently and have shared our conversation below.

Eva, we are so happy that our community is going to have a chance to learn more about you, your story and hopefully even take in some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way. Let’s start with self-care – what do you do for self-care and has it had any impact on your effectiveness?

As counterintuitive as it may seem on the surface, I find that doing the tasks I do not enjoy and have been putting off is a really effective form of self care. Things like washing the dishes, shampooing the carpet, or getting rid of items that take up space not only help my physical space feel more manageable, but it also translates to my headspace. The cleaner the space, the more organized and less overwhelmed I feel. For me, doing yoga or a mud mask are pleasant, but they do not improve my state of mind for longer than a few minutes. But completing tasks that I may have been feeling some guilt about for having not done them yet has a much more relieving, long-term benefit.

Additionally, setting boundaries is a really critical form of self-care, especially in the animal rescue world. You never want to tell people “no,” but if taking in their animal will put you over capacity and stretch you too thin, then it is your obligation to do so in the interest of your own health as well as the health of the animals in your care. Saying no is a skill that is really hard to develop, and can be very uncomfortable, so we always try to help in other ways if we cannot bring an animal into our care directly. This allows us to help as many animals as possible without diminishing our quality of care while also helping connect the community to much-needed resources. The more you work over capacity in animal rescue, the more likely you are to burn out and leave the field all together, and we need as many people involved in animal rescue as possible given the current overpopulation crisis we are facing.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Second Chance Heroes Rat Adoptions is a non-profit rat rescue that helps relieve the burden of shelters and laboratories by transferring rats into our specialized care. Rat rescues are few and far between, but rats are becoming increasingly popular pets and are finding themselves in shelters more than ever. With so many shelters being designed with cats and dogs in mind, it can be an additional challenge for shelter staff to care for the small animals, so we are a resource for them to ensure the animals’ safety while also getting them out of the stressful shelter environment.

We also love working with our laboratory partners when rats retire from their research. Lab rats generally do very well as pets after an adjustment period to life in the home, and it is a very special experience to watch them discover creature comforts like fleece hammocks. We currently have a group of laboratory rats who are continuing to help move science forward through a citizen science project, in which they are being adopted into homes as pets, and their new families are going to help us monitor health and behavior over time to see if the research done before they left the lab has long-term effects. As far as I am aware, this is the first project of its kind!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

For those starting out on their journey in animal rescue or welfare, I think some of the best things you can do are to really study animals. Learn how they experience the world, take courses on animal behavior and animal learning. Being able to explain to people how rats have very poor vision so fast movements may startle them will help prevent bites and will encourage others to consider the animal’s experience, which will in turn help create a world that is more compassionate to and understanding of our companion animals. Understanding that behavior is a symptom of an underlying issue – some need that is not being met – will help us help our animals instead of ascribing traits to them. Aggression can be a symptom of fear or pain – so let’s address those issues rather than branding the animal as “aggressive” or “mean” and not solving the actual problems at hand.

A quality to foster within yourself is empathy. It can be easy in the world of animal rescue to forget that oftentimes where there is animal suffering, there is also human suffering. The less judgment you put onto humans, the better your outlook on life, and the more influence you can have to enact positive change. Surrendering an animal is often the hardest decision a person has ever made, and it is one usually done out of love and desperation. It is impossible to separate animals and humans in this line of work, and every effort should be made to help the humans also access assistance and keep their beloved pets in the home with them and out of the shelter.

In line with that, familiarize yourself with the resources in your community. Research food insecurity and the average cost of veterinary expenses in your area. Invest in shelter diversion programs like pet food pantries (and human food pantries for that matter), low cost veterinary and spay/neuter access, find Fear Free certified professionals, and so on. You can do so much good for animals AND people working in animal sheltering.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

We would love to connect with more laboratories in the coming year to expand our reach with our lab rat program!

We also love collaborating with illustrators and artists to create educational materials and merchandise designs to help raise funds for our work.

If there are organizations looking to learn more about rats and rat well-being, we would love to chat! Animal shelters, veterinary practices, laboratories, and so on. We love providing education about rats to all, and especially to places that work directly with rats.

You can get in touch with us by emailing secondchancerats@gmail.com

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.secondchanceheroes.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/secondchancerats/

Image Credits

Eva Cross
Eva Cross and Lili Chin
Eva Cross
Dr. Alli Robbins
Eva Cross