People have been asking me about what’s involved with volunteering at an animal shelter and how to get started. There are so many ways to volunteer with animals. Walking shelter dogs, fostering a homeless dog or fostering a future service dog are just a few examples. And the reasons to volunteer are obvious. You will improve the lives of dogs and cats just by spending time with them. You will save lives, and you will feel uplifted knowing you are making a difference.
If you are interested in volunteering, call or email a dog shelter or rescue in your area and ask how you can get involved. Call more than one place, because different programs have different needs.
What to know before volunteering at a dog shelter:
1. Volunteering involves more than playing with puppies.
OK, you might be lucky enough to socialize and supervise puppies and kittens, but most animal shelters or rescues need volunteers to walk or run the big dogs, scoop the cat boxes, pick up poop, mop floors and answer phones. Scooping frozen poop or spraying down a kennel full of diarrhea is probably not your idea of fun, but someone has to do it. Woo hoo!
2. Walking shelter dogs is hard work.
Get used to 60-pound retriever, pitbull and shepherd mixes pulling you because it’s going to happen. Walking these dogs isn’t exactly leisurely. The dogs have pent-up energy, little training and have a hard time focusing. Many are dog aggressive and want to chase everything that moves. If you’re not comfortable walking these types of dogs, then request to walk the small dogs or ask if you can play with the dogs in a fenced area. Sometimes I bring my own leather leash and prong collar when I run with rescue dogs just to make sure I am in control. But this only helps if the collar fits properly.
3. If you get hurt, the shelter or rescue is not reliable.
Find out how the shelter handles dog bites and other injuries before an accident occurs. You will probably have to sign a form saying the shelter is not responsible if you are hurt or if one of the animals you are working with bites someone else. This could affect whether you want to volunteer or not so ask for this information.
4. You will see or hear of animals in pain.
Dogs and cats often end up in rescues after living in bad situations. Sometimes people unintentionally hurt their animals by keeping them confined to one room or a garage 24 hours a day. Other dogs are homeless, sick or injured for unknown reasons and some have been beaten or abused in other ways. If you volunteer at a dog shelter, you will be exposed to many sad situations involving dogs.
5. You will be aware of animals dying.
Some shelters euthanize animals. Others ship the dogs somewhere else to be killed. And those that don’t kill any animals must turn dogs and cats away due to a lack of space. You might even help decide which dogs live and which dogs die.
6. You could get scratched or bitten.
I’ve been scratched and bitten by dogs too many times to count. If you volunteer at a dog shelter, you will be dealing with stressed, scared and excited animals that have not had enough exercise, socialization or training. Dogs will jump on you, run into you and pull you. Any dog at any time can bite, but dogs in the shelter system are much more unpredictable than the average pet.
Cats especially will be freaked out. There’s a good chance you will be socializing Ferrel cats (with claws of course!) that have had little or no interaction with humans. And cat bites are serious.
7. Look beyond humane societies for volunteer opportunities.
The humane society in my town has so many volunteers that it can turn help away. I stopped in one time to see if any of the dogs needed a run and the staff showed little interest because they had enough help. I took home an application but never bothered filling it out because of all the requirements such as references, job history and pages of extensive questions. It wasn’t worth my time so I chose to volunteer at smaller, independent animal rescues. In my area of about 200,000 people there are at least five or six animal rescue groups besides the humane society that depend on volunteers.
8. There will be an application form and training.
Most dog shelters will require all volunteers to fill out an application form of some sort. Some will check references and have more extensive application processes than others. Usually the age requirement is 16. Some will have drawn-out training programs while others will only require you to meet with the volunteer coordinator to make sure you can actually control a dog.
9. Use your specific skills.
Just because a shelter or rescue organization doesn’t have a “job description” for you doesn’t mean they don’t need you. If you are a dog trainer, I guarantee you there are rescue dogs that desperately need training. If you are a runner like me, almost all the dogs could use a long run. If you know how to make a web site, many shelter sites could use an update if they even have a web site at all. If you’re good with people and persuasive, then why not get out there and convince some people to adopt a homeless pet? If you love kids, you could probably lead a school tour through the shelter. If you take good pictures, then make some fliers of homeless dogs and post them around town.
10. Volunteering with animals requires working with people, too.
As introverted as I am, I would much rather hang out with dogs all day than people. But there are endless volunteering opportunities that involves strong communication skills such as matching dogs with potential owners, training new volunteers, speaking to the public about spaying and neutering or informing people about American pitbull terriers. Writers, speakers, event coordinators and fundraisers are always needed.
11. Required hours vary from shelter to shelter.
The rescue I run dogs for is flexible because the dogs are boarded at a local kennel. I can show up during their open hours and run dogs whenever I want. Other rescues are not this flexible. For example, our humane society puts its volunteers on a schedule and requires a certain amount of hours per week.
12. You will want to adopt all the homeless dogs and cats.
Many animal lovers avoid volunteering at animal shelters for this reason. I’m still struggling with just saying no and realizing I can’t save all the animals. Need I say more?
What are your experiences with volunteering at dog shelters? If you’re interested in volunteering, what questions do you have?
Above is Jesse, an American pitbull terrier with 4 Luv of Dog Rescue in Fargo. He is a beautiful, playful dog available for adoption. Edit: Jesse has been adopted!
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Excellent points.
I found a small local group that fits my busy schedule and is very satisfying. If the larger places don’t work for your readers, most municipalities have smaller groups that do excellent work with dogs.
thats one thing that is high on my to do list. Although I’m limited to administrative work due to my allergies.
BOO
Jesse is a cutie btw! I love his coloring
I met Jesse last weekend. Very nice dog. He will make someone very happy.
I love the pics of Jesse – so cute. Yeah, I’d have a hard time with numbers 5 & 12 especially. I would not be able to make decisions on an animal’s life as in who should live or not. Ouch.
We got Daisy from a local shelter.
A friend of ours volunteers there and you are right, it is very hard work. The noise is deafening thereas well. She doeas a great thing. I don’t know if I could do it though. It’s heartbreaking seeing all the animals there.
We do make contributions to them whenever we can though.
Yes, I didn’t even think to mention all the barking. Earplugs help a lot.
I’ve recently started volunteering at my local, independent no-kill shelter, and I can relate to a lot of what you say here.
As much as I love playing with the dogs (and as important as that socialization is) the real work I do is scooping poop, cleaning kennels, washing bowls, washing laundry, scooping more poop, and then scooping more poop. But a) it doesn’t bother me and b) I want to make sure that the dogs in the shelter have as clean and sanitary and happy environment as they can given that they ARE in a shelter. I think to myself – if my dogs were here, how would I want this to look? How clean would I want it to be for them? And, anyway – I grew up with horses, so scooping poop isn’t a thing for me.
Dear Lindsay,
Thank you so much for this post. AS you know, I have been considering volunteering at a shelter, but my main concern isn’t allergies or noise or even bites, but the emotional pain I will go through by watching them suffer and, as you say, not being able to save them all. What if I get attached and then the dog has to be put away? This would be heartbreaking. I guess I need to find a no-kill shelter, but even then it’s emotionally wrenching. At the same time I want to help and make a difference in these dogs’ lives. Next week I have an interview at GAIA, which is a sister society of WSPA here in Belgium. They are looking for people to volunteer with office work. I guess I’ll have to think about it carefully. Most of the shelters are out of Brussels and quite far from where I live. It’s not like in the States, where there’s a shelter in every town.
Some Ideas!
Get your entire community involved. Do you have a SENIORS group of ladies who crochet or knit? They can create snuggies for shelter dogs and cats. They can also crochet and knit very cool dog sweaters so that you can sell them and use the proceeds for spay/neuter etc.
BOY SCOUTS – Boy scouts have to do community volunteering projects and they can do aluminum can drives and you can recycle the cans and use the money for stuff your rescue needs.
501c3 – If you are a 501c3 rescue group, you can apply for grants and places like Walmart will donate pallet loads of dog food for homeless dogs and cats to your group. Petsmart and stores like that will sometimes offer grants as well. People who want to deduct their donations on their taxes will donate to your cause more readily.
Advertise – If you have a MySpace or a Facebook, be sure and advertise your cause and start a cause group. I started my No Kill cause group on Facebook like a week ago and have 101 members who all agree with me that No Kill can and should be accomplished. Since Facebook and MySpace are worldwide or at least nationwide, you can also advertise your friend’s rescue’s dogs and cats as a courtesy and people in those places will also see them maybe.
Get the newspaper involved – Get the local newspaper to get a page or a column or two devoted to local animals who need adopted at your shelter. Have the paper ask the community to consider fostering, dog walking, aluminum can collecting, crocheting, knitting, donating old towels and blankets etc.
Spay Day USA…Find people in your community to pledge who are willing to donate $? per spay per month. For instance if every one of the 101 facebook people that I have signed up would give me $1 per spay per month and we agreed to do 5 spays per month, then we would get $500 toward spays. I am just using that as an example, I have a vet here that does cats for $20- $50 each and Dogs for $85.
Sign your rescue group up with IGive. The way igive works is that if i have your rescue group as my igive charity, I will go to igive and log on when I am going to do any kind of online shopping and see if the store that I am thinking about purchasing things from is listed as an igive donor. Say my son, wants a new skateboard for Christmas, I will go on igive and look up ccs skate shop and click on their link and buy the skateboard, and ccs will donate like 2% of the purchase to your charity. This really does work. My charity of choice has raised like $76 bucks since June. Your charity does not have to be a 501c3 for this either.
Petfinder and other mediums like it are wonderful tools for matching dogs and cats with perspective adopters. We have people look at our dogs and cats about 1000 times a week.
Pray for places like Philadelphia, Pa & Houston,
TX to go No Kill because the 3rd and 4th largest cities in the United States are capable of doing so and are currently considering stopping the killing of about 160,000 dogs and cats a year. What happens in the biggest cities will trickle into the smaller outlying communities and eventually we will be saving about 90% of the dogs and cats that end up in shelters. I believe that about 10% will come in too sick or unrehabilitable and unable to ever live a decent and comfortable life and will not be able to be saved.
Get the word out about how special senior dogs are. If you can sanctuary senior dogs, you save a huge population of dogs from being killed in shelters. I have 4 at my house currently that were going to be killed the next day if I did not bring them home. OI was orginally a small dog owner and I ended up with these old big guys and they are the nicest thing that EVER happened in the animal rescuing world at my house.
When you have adoption events, bring the dogs that are not the most highly adoptable. Of course if you bring all the little cuteys they are going to get scooped right up but you got to be marketing your older dogs, not so pretty dogs, big black dogs, etc. Get the bandanas and cool hats and glasses on them or whatever you have to do to spark interest in the adoptable pets.
Animals that are sick or injured that you think that can helped, get them out of the pound and get them to the vet and fundraise from your community, your website, your myspace, your facebook. Trust me people will give you money if you saved a diabetic dog who weighed 45 lbs and got her healthy and back up to 75 or 80 lbs. They will send money to the vet even if they dont want to give you the money. This is something that you can also collect money for in front of Petsmart, the vet can have a donation bucket at his receptionist, each of the people in your community can have donation cans. (my husband owns 2 laundrymats and a dry cleaner, he does all the shelter laundry for free and it would cost them about .85 cents a pound to do it without him donating his services and he does about 500 lbs for them for free a week. Blankets, towels, washcloths, etc. He has a donation can in each of his businesses and he gets about $25 a week and he has a vending machine and he uses one slot and puts really good selling candy bars in it and says 100% of the proceeds of these Reeses Peanut Butter Cups this week will go to No Kill Monroe County to help save dogs and cats.
Trap neuter and release feral cats back where you found them or relocate them to barns but dont take them to shelters to be murdered. They have a right to live their wild little lives in the wild where they are from. We not only trap, neuter, spay and immunize cats here, but we build little cat shelters for them and put down straw for them and cat food, etc. If it was true that they dont stand a chance and that the wolves would get them, there would not be such a big feral cat problem would there.
Microchipping – this saves lives, because if your dog or cat gets out and ends up at a pound then the scan of your dog or cat and a phone call to the microchip company lets the shelter know that this dog or cat belongs to you and then they can call you to come and get your prodigal pet and that reduces the death of lost dogs and cats. There is a chance that if you dont get to the shelter and find your dog or cat they will be killed or adopted out. If they are identifiable, they can be returned to you. Rescues and Vets can reduce the deaths and numbers of animals needing rescue if they sponsor a low cost microchipping event.
Spay and Neuter – we all know.
Immunization clinics – Your rescue and local vets can put these on.
Rescue Networking – check out: http://cpaa.info/about_us.html while you are there be sure and check out the member groups that have come together to declare No Kill Central Pennsylvania!
Listen we can do this together! There are a ton more things, ideas I could put here. Oh WAIT! i almost forgot!
Sororities and fraternities always need to do charitable stuff and college kids should definately be able to come out and handle dogs and cats at adoption events. They can fund raise too. They will do stuff like fun runs, 5k-nine walks, bake sales, flea markets, etc.
Elementary school kids can do drives for pets supplies.
Don’t forget that cat food cans are aluminum and so are their tops, but please clean then off before you take them to recycle.
Save your newspapers and donate them to cat rescues.
Also if you shop at stores like aldis or wholesale clubs that you take your groceries home in cardboard flats, the cats like to claw those and lay around in them.
I NEVER GIVE MONEY TO SHELTERS THAT KILL ANIMALS. I INSTEAD USE THE MONEY DIRECTLY FOR WHAT THE ANIMALS NEED. Like instead of giving a shelter money, I will rescue a dog from there and if I dont have a foster home for him or her immediately, I will board that dog in a kennel (ours here are about $10 per day per dog).
When you go to a shelter, if you see a purebred anything, get on the internet and find that breeds rescues and call or email every single one in the entire country and see if one of them will take your animal and then get it out and get it on a transport to that rescue.
And for your blog viewer, Mayra, There is nothing at all heartwrenching about no kill rescues and shelters. You know that this dog or cat is going to live til it finds a home and you dont have to worry about getting attached then finding out he or she was killed. You can give them treats and teach them tricks and fall in love without fear. Also since NO Kill almost always is in desparate need of foster parents, maybe you can foster! Warning! It is sooooooooooo hard when the dog or cat that you nursed to healthy gets adopted. You know he or she is going to an awesome home, but you will miss him and that part is heartwrenching but not as bad as one getting killed for no reason but that they are homeless which totally makes no sense whatsoever.
Oh my husband wants some dinner dang him! Thanks so much for loving the dogs and cats ya’ll! I have tons more ideas and no time right now!
Lori
I knew I was not done! I forgot to mention, my son and a local tattoo artist donated my logo, my other son bought my www’s for me for christmas and my other son is working on my website and you should ALWAYS ask around for what you need! You can not believe how many people want to help and just dont know how!
Thanks for your ideas Lori. I especially like the idea of finding the purebred dogs in local shelters and calling all the rescues for that specific breed. Your idea to bring all the bigger, more hyper or less attractive dogs to adoption events and dress them up in bandannas and cute clothes is also a great idea. I think it’s easy to think of the smaller dogs and bring them because you know they will get adopted. But the truth is those dogs will get adopted anyway, so why not bring some of the older or more obnoxious dogs out?
Hey Lindsay!
Check out how this pit bull rescue decorated their dogs for Christmas~! I think they look marvelous! Who would not want one of them!!!!
mabbr.org
Ha, very cute. The dogs look great.
yeah, those are very good points, although i am 13 and i LOVE doing that kind of stuff and i am dying to get into it more often, how can i do this is i am underage?
Lori, is your last name Turnur?
Angie, I’m sure you can get involved somehow. You just have to ask. When I was in middle school I volunteered to walk dogs with a school group at a humane society and we had an adult come along.
Today I walked dogs at the animal shelter. Everything you wrote is so true. One thing I’ve noticed is that the people who volunteer for this are not good with people; they are only good with dogs. I said a friendly hello to an arriving volunteer, and she told me I was too dressed up to walk dogs. I had on the same thing she had on–capris and a knit shirt. What she didn’t like was I had on a red khaki jacket that coordinated with the knit shirt. She thought I was wearing it for fashion rather than for warmth. That made me want to get in my car and head out of there.
Hi Elle. I know what you mean about how some people are only good with dogs and not with people! Sorry you didn’t have the best experience. Maybe you can work at a time when that volunteer won’t be there. Or maybe there is another shelter that needs volunteers. Either way, I’m sure the dogs and the shelter coordinators appreciated your work!
I want to volunteer for school causes and maybe even donate some money I care for animal and want them to be rescued and let them get some exercise. I love animals and want to help!! Thank You for listening to me hopefully I will see you.