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One of the best ways you can “give back” to your favorite species and breed is to find a local shelter and volunteer your time and energy to helping out. More often than not shelters are run on a shoestring budget with limited staff, little fundraising options, and more often than not running over capacity - the harsh truth is that so many animals are being refused that even these places that have been established to take in these guys are having to turn them away. Being a volunteer is more than just going in and scooping poop and filling up feed buckets, though - perhaps you have a certain skill that you can lend: for example, I have a bad back so generally I’m quite bad for having to carry anything heavy, but I’m a photographer and can do graphic design, so I donate my time toward helping design products for fundraising and take photos for promotion, as well as helping out in small ways while others do the heavier work - even being able to hold a skittish animal while another grooms them is an appreciated extra set of hands. But even if you’re a “hands off” volunteer, inevitably you’re going to find a particular animal (or three, or five… or more…) that you have a particular bond with. Depending on the sort of rescue that you spend your time at, it may be that you’re the only person this particular animal learns to trust. It sounds strange, but it happens… and when it does, it breaks your heart and fills it right back up with joy. ---- As for myself, I volunteer at a wolfdog rescue. We’re a non-profit organization and receive no federal funding and run solely off of public donations and volunteer work, which means more often than not things are left undone and we struggle to make sure that everything is done each month. Lately we’ve had horrible storms that has sent tons of trees down on the property, several pens have been destroyed from falling trees (but thank goodness none of our guys were hurt - they were hiding in their dogloos!) and our driveway washed away. Every month we have a public event where we invite people to come up and see our site, have an educational tour and learn more about what wolfdogs are (and, more importantly, what they aren’t), and have a small cookout. We had an event today. As people were leaving, I decided to go around and take a few photos of some of our senior wolfdogs, as we currently have two that are unwell and probably won’t be with us much longer. As I got to the first one’s pen, I noticed he was down and once I went in, he was refusing to get up. He’s nearly 16 - ridiculously old for one of these animals, normally they live to be around 10 or 12, and we have probably 20 animals that are over 14. We don’t do adoptions and are an “end of life” sanctuary, and we do what we can to make our older critters comfortable. Anyway, he refused to get up, period, even when offered a hotdog. After a lot of scrambling to get others to come check him out, we finally got him up and moving and got something for pain in him and he ate some, but our President said she was most likely going to call the vet out tomorrow for him, and if not definitely some time in the next week.  I don’t know why this is hitting me so hard. He’s not the first that we’ve lost while I’ve been working there - hell, it’s been going on 3 years that I’ve been there and in that time we’ve lost probably 15 animals, many of them that I was much closer to than this guy. -- Anyway… to make this less of a  thread, I was hoping maybe other people could share happy things about their volunteering experiences to help cheer me up about all of this. Where do you volunteer? What made you start? Show us pictures of your favorite furbabies at your rescues. 
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Aug 10, 2014 02:19
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I have wanted to volunteer for the longest, but I'm really afraid to. I'm afraid I will get too attached, or that we will get one too many severely abused animals and I will go off the deep end. Also, I'm not quite sure how. Some of the bigger places have websites and aplications, but I'm not sure about smaller places. Do you just go in and say, "Hey, I wanna volunteer!" or something? What is the average day of a volunteer like? Also-also, I'm really sorry bad things are happening for you, drat Satyr.
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Aug 10, 2014 04:17
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DicktheCat posted:I have wanted to volunteer for the longest, but I'm really afraid to. I'm afraid I will get too attached, or that we will get one too many severely abused animals and I will go off the deep end. Nearly every rescue will have some sort of application process - think of it like applying to any job, really, only this one you're not getting paid for. Depending on the breed / species, you have to understand that there are people out there that just want to make trouble, and they really have to try and weed all of that out. I guess maybe we see more of that because we deal specifically with wolfdogs, and people somehow go mental the moment they think ~oh wild and free wolves in captivity that need to be free~ when they're dogs that can't fend for themselves at all... but that's a completely different rant. If you have a specific place in mind, check out their website and see if there's an email address or phone number for a volunteer coordinator. Short of that, just call or email their main address and I'm sure they'll get you lined up. Most small places are, like I said, ran on a shoestring and can use every hand they can get. We have ~60 animals right now, but when I first started out we had nearly 90. Our capacity is for about 70 or so, and that's having ~2 per run. We don't really like putting more than 2 animals in any given enclosure, but thankfully if we need to we can if we have that many coming in. Most of our older animals are pretty amicable to being together so we can play 'doggy feng shui' as our president likes to call it. As for an average day... gosh, there isn't ever an 'average' day. Our place is laid out in three "tiers" because we're literally on the side of a mountain, so we have an upper level, a middle level, and a lower level... usually they start at the bottom and work their way to the top, scooping pens and cleaning water buckets, and dumping any uneaten food from the previous night. Once the full sweep is done, they go back to the beginning and with huge buckets feed the whole mess of them. This process alone takes about five hours, more if it's raining. More often than not something is broken, just recently in the past month the cistern for our well started leaking so we have no water sometimes. As you can imagine, this complicates giving fresh water to all of the dogs. We do have a small creek that runs right through our property, though, and so on the days when the water's out we have to crawl down into the creek and pass buckets of water up. To speak about it like this, I know it sounds like I'm bitching but.. man, I love those guys and I wouldn't trade it for the world. The weirdest thing is that there are some animals that have been so badly abused - we have dogs that have come in from situations where they were breeding stock, dogs from roadside zoos where they were touted as ~wolves~, dogs that were beat and lived on chains their whole lives, dogs that were sent to us as a last resort because they inevitable got lose and killed something (usually other, smaller dogs, chickens and so on - anything small and quick sets off the preydrive). Those most broken dogs turn out to be the ones that will somehow, seemingly randomly, one day let you in. We have one that I've been slowly working with for many months that's never liked anyone much, and whenever we go to clean out her enclosure she would always run to the back and hide. A few months ago, they'd just done a raw feed and the next day she turned up acting strangely with her head held down and sort of wobbling around, and once we got the vet in she was quickly diagnosed with pancreatitis. We had to put her in isolation because she couldn't be on the high-protein kibble we normally feed, and one day when my husband and I were up there, our president had baked a chicken to give her some of it. I asked her if she wouldn't mind if I took it to her, and she said sure since she knew I'd been trying to get her to warm up a bit to me, so I went out there with my big bowl of chicken and sat down next to the fence. As soon as she smelled it, her ears went up and sniff sniff sniff, scoot scoot a little closer... I put a piece on the fence right in front of me and she streeeeeeeeeeeetched over and grabbed it. Then after a few seconds of gulping it down she came right up to the fence next to me and layed down, literally right against my leg, tail just ever so slightly wagging, and I hand fed that dog every single piece of that chicken. Those are the moments, right there, that make it all worthwhile.
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Aug 10, 2014 05:55
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DicktheCat posted:I have wanted to volunteer for the longest, but I'm really afraid to. I'm afraid I will get too attached, or that we will get one too many severely abused animals and I will go off the deep end. I volunteer with the dogs at a large-ish no-kill shelter, both with the dogs on the adoption floor and in the behavior modification program (mostly resource guarders and dogs with handling issues). Because the shelter is large, there's a lot of structure around volunteering, with a basic volunteer orientation that everyone goes through then a number of specialized seminar-style classes for various volunteer positions, along with on-the-job mentoring. My shift usually goes something like this: Get in around 7:45 if I'm acting lead - unlock everything, gather kennel cards, print out a list of adoptable dogs, sort the cards into various categories (some dogs go out for a run, some dogs need to go out early in the shift), check the exercise runs for cleanliness. If I'm not lead, I'll come in at 8 and assist with the staging by grabbing treats from the kitchen, stocking up on clean toys and setting out all the collars/harnesses. Then we take dogs out. Each dog gets around 20-30 minutes. I'll alternate between doing a short walk and training/playtime or a long walk, depending on how I feel and what's been done with the dog recently. We write up a short synopsis of what we did, lather, rinse and repeat. 2.5 hours later, it's time to either clean and disinfect the exercise runs or make and distribute kongs to all the dogs on the floor. Cards get returned to the kennels, and it's time to punch out. My shift with the behavior program dogs is similar in terms of get a dog, work with a dog, write up a dog, but with less staging and clean-up and more creative ways to find spaces to work. Some of the socialization cases involve just sitting in the dog's run, not making eye contact and tossing treats for a while. I worked with one guy who took a month of tossing treats with little/no eye contact before he'd come up to me and let me leash him. Now he squeals with excitement when he sees me coming. These are the ones that I find myself getting attached to, since they're generally in the system for longer and can be handled by a smaller group of people. I'll also occasionally foster dogs from the behavior program and it's interesting to see how differently they act at home versus in the shelter. We're not generally told about the full extent of a dog's backstory, though big puppy mill busts or hoarding cases are pretty obvious. It leads to a lot of wild speculation on the part of some volunteers who think that every dog is abused.
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Aug 10, 2014 06:46
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DicktheCat posted:I have wanted to volunteer for the longest, but I'm really afraid to. I'm afraid I will get too attached, or that we will get one too many severely abused animals and I will go off the deep end. I volunteer at a smaller shelter with cats. There are 2 rooms. The kitten room obviously is where the kittens are. They are in large "cat condo" cages and receive most of the attention from the volunteers. The adult cat room is mainly free-roaming cats with a few in cages because of special diet or behavior problems. That's where I spend most of my time since kittens can gently caress off. Most shelters let you choose your own hours, though finding shifts on the weekend might prove challenging. I come in at 12 pm and stay till 2 pm. I do this 3 times a week. If the cats need water or I notice the litter boxes need to be cleaned I am expected to do it. I also have to throw in a load of laundry or fold it if necessary. I try to check laundry at least twice during my shift. Otherwise I bring in a laser pointer to play with the cats while one is in my lap. Playing with them so they get exercise is very important. Most people I've seen just pet them and ignore the active side. I also play some music on my phone to pass the time and give them a change of pace. You will grow attached. You have to realize it will never stop. There will always be cats there that need you regardless of how many you adopt. Having self control is VERY important. Besides, if you want to help them just keep coming in. You will be scratched/bit many times while you are there. It happens. limp_cheese fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 05:22
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limp_cheese posted:You will be scratched/bit many times while you are there. It happens. Yes, definitely this. Also, depending on what sort of rescue you're considering, you may also have clothes ruined. We have one guy that's notorious for ripping pockets if he thinks you have treats. I have a chunk gone out of my right thumb because I was giving his pennate her meds in a hotdog, and he decided that my thumb was also a hotdog and snapped at my hand. Whoops. :|
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Aug 13, 2014 17:16
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limp_cheese posted:You will be scratched/bit many times while you are there. It happens. I figure this is more of a given with cats (or wolfdogs apparently) than with adoptable dogs. Biting isn't exactly a one-strike-you're-out sort of scenario, but anything that breaks skin sends the dog into a 10-day quarantine. I can count on one hand how many times I've been nipped with intent, and in two years I've never had a bite break skin (knock wood). I have been mouthed on every once in a while in play, and dealt with a few dogs who were a little sharky taking treats. It helps that I work on a day where there are a lot of people running the more boisterous dogs, so the ones that are left are less likely to bounce all over you.
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Aug 13, 2014 20:58
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Getting bit or scratched isn't scary. Sucks, happens. Can't really get mad at animals, you know? So, are those dogs actually, you know part wolf? Or are they a certain breed just called that?
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Aug 14, 2014 03:27
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DicktheCat posted:Getting bit or scratched isn't scary. Sucks, happens. Can't really get mad at animals, you know? It's complected, and completely different per animal. Generally the term is misunderstood, and the reeducation of what they actually are is part of why we do monthly public events. The definition that we use is that a wolfdog is any dog that has a "pure" wolf ancestor within five generations. We do not use the term wolf hybrid however. A ‘hybrid” is the offspring of two different species, and following the taxonomical reclassification of the dog in 1993, the domestic dog (canis lupus familiaris) is now considered as a domestic variant of the gray wolf (canis lupus). Beyond that, with genetics, even within the same litter you can get some pups that are just more "wolfy" than others. There is no DNA test that can prove wolf heritage (thus part of the support for the previously mentioned reclassification), anyone that tells you that they have a 80% or 95% wolf that they bought from the fleamarket has almost certainly been lied to about what their dog really is. We try to not refer to where any animal falls on the scale beyond saying "high, medium, or low content" because honestly, all we can do is look at them and judge by that and their behavior, and nine times out of ten we get animals that have come in from neglect, abuse or situations where they were breeding stock and they don't know what to do when we put them in big pens, so half the time we can't really even judge off of behavior until months after they've arrived and really gotten used to us. Some never get that far and never learn to trust humans, and for those we have special pens on the back of the property, way in the forested areas, so that when we have public events they're shielded and they don't have to have any contact with people beyond having their pens scooped, feeding and watering. But, I digress. I'm very passionate about these guys and could ramble on for ages. This girl came to us, billed as a black wolf. There's not a drop of wolf in this animal. She weights about 40lbs sopping wet and is the sweetest little dog you've ever met. She's been placed in homes three times and every single time something unfortunate has befallen her owner - the most recent fell down and broke a hip - so she's resigned to being our LBD... that is, little black dog.  In contrast, this is our "highest content" animal. I don't have any pictures of him that aren't through the fence because quite honestly he scares the snot out of me. After all the time that I've been there, I've only just recently gotten to the point that he'll let me scratch his head and side when I go by if he's up at the fence... He only has about three people that he trusts to get really close with him, but those people can go in and play with him and give him all the love in the world.   I guess in terms of "breed", there are a few actual standards, even though they're not recognized by any particular organization. There are "lines" that are very distinctive, but to be honest I couldn't tell you much about them other than being able to place a couple dogs as relatives. More often than not the dog that gets bred in is either GSD, Malamute, Husky, and the other various "northern" breeds. Here are a few other pictures, as examples of the variety of "looks" that the wolfdogs we have taken in have:    (this is also the guy that decided my thumb was a hotdog. >_>  Oh, we also have two of these:   All aboard the meat wagon!
That Damn Satyr fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Aug 14, 2014 |
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Aug 14, 2014 05:05
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I am a care supervisor at a large, open-admission shelter. I am a paid employee, so my experiences will obviously differ to some degree. Please volunteer. It is so, so, so important. Depending on the intake load and resources of your shelter, there is a very high chance it wouldn't run without volunteer assistance. At my shelter, our volunteers are funneled into different groups based on their interests and knowledge level. Most of our volunteers work hands-on in the daily operations of animal care (cleaning, feeding, basic handling and enrichment), but this also includes cleaning in a lot of not-directly animal related capacities. It is very likely you will be doing a ton of laundry. My facility houses between 50 and 90 dogs at any given time, and between 100 and 300 cats depending on the season (if you start working or volunteering for a shelter with any regularity, you will come to hate summer). Suffice it to say, there are a lot of blankets and towels to wash. We have 2 industrial washers and they run absolutely non-stop. These people are critical, as they free up resources so that I can focus on making our animals' stays in the shelter shorter and less stressful instead of running around making sure kennels are getting cleaned. We have a team of volunteers dedicated to behavior and training. They work one on one with dogs and/or cats that need extra individualized attention to either make them more adoptable or provide a more humane existence during their stay in the shelter. This can be anything from clicker training with a dog who has high arousal levels, to quiet petting sessions with a shut down cat, to running dogs for a play group with our behavior staff, to desensitization training with an animal who is getting meds and having a hard time with it. These people make life better on an individual basis for our animals. They have to pitch in cleaning sometimes and frequently complain about it. Please don't be like that. We have other volunteers who assist our rehoming team in screening and counseling potential adopters. This is crucial, because we can better match people with animals that will be appropriate for their home. This reduces returns and strengthens our reputation, which means more referrals and eventually more animals leaving alive. If you are particularly good at organizing and delegating, you will be prized above all the other volunteers because you can get poo poo done on your own. We have a woman who volunteers for one 4 hour shift every week who is just an incredible fury of productivity and compassion. No matter how short-staffed I am on Thursdays, I know I will be able to ask her to handle a project for me and it will get finished. She is an incredibly valuable asset to our organization. You might get bitten or scratched. Our volunteers don't work with animals who haven't had a complete behavior evaluation yet, so it happens to them at a much lower rate than for our paid employees. Sheltering is an industry full of heartbreak and sadness. You will fall in love with animals that have bad things happen to them. You will want to save every one of them and be completely unable to do so. It can be soul-crushing at times. But there is also no greater joy in the world for me than when I get an email full of happy pictures of a dog I thought was probably going to end up being euthanized living it up with her new family. Try it out. If anyone has any specific questions I would be happy to answer them.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:47
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mookerson posted:If anyone has any specific questions I would be happy to answer them. What's been your single most rewarding experience/best rehoming memory, if you have one? Maybe the 'worst' condition animal that's come in, that you've seen rehabilitated and gone on to be adopted out?
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Aug 16, 2014 19:13
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That drat Satyr posted:What's been your single most rewarding experience/best rehoming memory, if you have one? Maybe the 'worst' condition animal that's come in, that you've seen rehabilitated and gone on to be adopted out? One of my coworkers has a habit of finding the saddest, scaredest little dogs and moving them into my office to try and perk them up. It usually works pretty well. My favorite would probably be Cici. Cici is a ~5 year old Chihuahua/terrier who came in and for her first 2 days in a kennel, did not move off her bed. She did not eat, she urinated on herself because she wouldn't stand to go to the bathroom, she was pretty much catatonic. We moved her into the office. The first day she did the same thing, perfectly motionless, would not interact with anyone, nothing. When I came in the next day, she was sitting in my desk chair. I moved to pick her up so I could sit down, she ran and hid under a desk. For about an hour she would creep out a little bit, but as soon as I moved or turned she would dart back under furniture to hide. I ended up sitting on the floor with her while I did some paperwork. After a few minutes of not moving and completely ignoring her, I felt something warm and furry against my arm. I looked down and Cici was trying to crawl into my lap. She spent 3 more days in my office until she went to foster. For those 3 days I was her best buddy. I couldn't sit without her jumping into my lap, but she was incredibly well behaved. Fully housebroken with no accidents and friendly to everyone from that point on, though she did like to wander around on the desks while I was out. We also had a pittie named Ella who had some relatively severe reactions to being in a kennel. Growling and barking every time she saw a man pass by her run, extremely high arousal levels, jumping and bouncing off the walls of her run constantly. There was some internal conversation about her adoptability. Basically we could not put her on the adoption floor because even though she had done extremely well in all her behavior evals and gone to adoption events, she was terrifying to potential adopters about half the time. We made a big push to get her into a foster home, and she has since been adopted. We also took in a dog who was clearly used in dog fighting, Leah. Leah came in with about 3 dozen puncture wounds, but also looked like someone had decided to attack her with a weedwacker. She was covered in cuts, and was incredibly shy. In our jurisdiction, since we had no way to track where her bite wounds had come from, we are required to keep her on a 6 month bite quarantine from other animals and the general public. That means she can't go to events, can't be on the adoption floor, and would have been stuck in the shelter for a really absurd, completely inhumane length of time. A friend of one of our front desk employees stepped up and offered to complete the bite quarantine at her home, so Leah is now living the good life as an only dog and is pretty much all healed up.
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Aug 16, 2014 23:51
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I've volunteered for an open-admission city shelter, am a member of a pit bull advocacy non-profit, did a shelter behavior internship, and went through the Karen Pryor Academy's "Shelter Training & Enrichment" program. While volunteering is super important and appreciated, so is understanding animal behavior. I would definitely recommend reading up on it if you're going to handle animals or educate the public about them (plus it's just good information to know no matter what).
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Aug 17, 2014 17:43
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The wolf dog sanctuary is really cool. Where do you get your meat from? Butcher shop donations?
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Aug 17, 2014 20:41
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Skizzles posted:I've volunteered for an open-admission city shelter, am a member of a pit bull advocacy non-profit, did a shelter behavior internship, and went through the Karen Pryor Academy's "Shelter Training & Enrichment" program. What literature would you recommend? Are particular books better than others? Where would be a good start?
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Aug 17, 2014 21:04
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Oooh, shelters. I work at an animal shelter as paid staff. It is a smaller capacity shelter (10-30 dogs and 20-50 cats). I was an animal care attendant for nearly a year and saw a lot. I am now doing other things there, though I do lend a hand with some animal duties. Miss the animal care a lot some days, it sure is dirty hard work, am at least glad to come home not covered in animal waste every day. Our regular volunteers are the best people ever and they make everyone at the shelter happier. The animals love them. The staff is happy to see them. If you want to volunteer, do it! As long as you're a responsible adult you are almost certainly helping the animals have a better standard of care just by being there to lend a hand. Chances are you'll have a good time, meet good people, and find it rewarding. Working every weekend you see many regulars that enjoy their few hours a week there. The worst that could happen is something traumatic with an animal such as animal-on-animal aggression. It's very unlikely, but it can happen.
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Aug 18, 2014 00:35
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EVG posted:The wolf dog sanctuary is really cool. Where do you get your meat from? Butcher shop donations? Our biggest meat donations come from local foodbanks. When they get in meat, if there's things that they can't give out to the public they freeze it and call us. We also have a nearby bison farm that does large scale processing of their meat, and we get donations from them of the bits they don't sell to the public. As well, we have a lot of private individuals that will bring in things - many local hunters will bring in their yearly deer kills, and we feed that chopped up as well.
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Aug 18, 2014 01:45
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DicktheCat posted:What literature would you recommend? Are particular books better than others? Where would be a good start? If you are looking for more practical advice for a shelter environment, or have some handling experience, Suzanne Clothier developed the behavior assessment that we use at my shelter. She has an incredibly informative series of articles on her website. Dr. Sophia Yin is wonderful for advice on handling tougher animals in less invasive, lower stress (for both the animal and handler) ways. She focuses on controlling the range of motion through joint points rather than overpowering an animal, which is usually a much more pleasant way to get the results you need out of a difficult animal. Unlike many other behavior resources, she doesn't focus exclusively on dogs! This is excellent news, because angry cats are absolutely terrifying. If you don't want to become anyone's devotee, CCPDT is the major certification organization for dog trainers in the US. You can use their study objectives guide to get an idea of what would be useful knowledge to have. They don't provide most of the information, but they tell you what to study. Hope this was what you were looking for!
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Aug 18, 2014 02:31
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^^^ Agreed, those are some great sources for starting off. Patricia McConnell's one of my favorites - her writing is both informative and entertaining. Sophia Yin does have some great tips on handling, plus some all-around good behavior info on her website. Pat Miller has a book called "Do Over Dogs" which is basically about working with shelter dogs to help make them more adoptable. I have a copy but have yet to read it, but I have read her book "The Power of Positive Dog Training" and that was a good, relatively concise book for people new to dog training. Typically I trust CAABs (certified applied animal behaviorists) the most, though.
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Aug 25, 2014 00:12
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I help run a foster-based rescue that is breed specific. AMA. 
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Aug 25, 2014 15:10
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I foster kittens for a local dog and cat rescue. We currently have 5 boys: Jon Snow, Samwell, Hodor, Jaime, and Tyrion. The latter twos' sister Cercei was adopted. Right now everyone has ringworm. Ah, the trials of foster!
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Aug 27, 2014 23:23
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I volunteered at a no-kill dog and cat shelter for a few years when I was in college. The shelter asked me to, no joke, come in a couple of times a week to spend a few hours playing with the cats to get them used to human contact, especially human contact that won't hurt them. A laser pointer, da bird, and some jeans that can withstand kitten claws, and it was a good way to spend a few hours.
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Aug 28, 2014 00:23
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I was just talking with a friend and this happened:Steam conversation posted:Kee: Na'much, just got home. Well lots, actually, but nothing fun or exciting. *pleh* I know this is semiofftopic, but - I don't live anywhere near the area, but I thought some of you might have help or suggestions to make. I honestly can't find words, it's disgusting to see peole put profit before the lives of thinking living beings again 
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Aug 29, 2014 03:04
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Getting a week before they get killed is actually longer than they get in this lovely city of El Paso, TX. They get three days here by policy standard.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:40
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There are too many homeless pets and not enough money. Some gonna get euthed.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:48
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My friend also tells me that the volunteers who work with the dogs aren't allowed to train, socialize, play, or cuddle with the dogs, not even pet them - they just get fed and walked once a day and put back into a cage. Which of course means they're not human-socialized at all and the few that do get adopted need socialization therapy.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:49
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Drake_263 posted:My friend also tells me that the volunteers who work with the dogs aren't allowed to train, socialize, play, or cuddle with the dogs, not even pet them - they just get fed and walked once a day and put back into a cage. Which of course means they're not human-socialized at all and the few that do get adopted need socialization therapy.  I love it when new people learn about what actually happens at dog "shelters". Walked.  Most shelters don't even have time to walk. It's dog storage until the dogs can be processed into trash bags. Some get out, most don't. HSUS work is great.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:53
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Drake_263 posted:My friend also tells me that the volunteers who work with the dogs aren't allowed to train, socialize, play, or cuddle with the dogs, not even pet them - they just get fed and walked once a day and put back into a cage. Which of course means they're not human-socialized at all and the few that do get adopted need socialization therapy. Liability. During stray hold, if something happens with the dog while a volunteer has it out (gets off leash and hit by a car, gets into a dog fight, bites someone), then the legal ground around who is responsible for what gets shaky as hell. If it's a small city shelter, they probably barely have the resources to feed the animals, much less pay for expensive vet bills. This honestly looks like a shelter with a really low adoption turnover, given the fact that they haven't had a Facebook post in 6 months, and only have 9 animals (all dogs) available for adoption. If they have like 10 kennels and keep every dog that comes in, they are going to bottleneck and be forced to euthanize. There are a lot of factors that go into LOS (length of stay, the most important metric behind LRR or live release rate), but it is also one of the best determinants of how well an animal is going to do in an adopted home. Dogs lose their minds staying in shelters too long, because even the best run shelters with the most resources can't provide enough mental stimulation and love for a human-centric dog to thrive. A one week adoption period is a knee-jerk reaction that probably won't help them in the long run, but having a protocol in place to make euthanasia decisions for you is incredibly tempting. Making the call on which animals live or die is the hardest part of shelter work, and it's also the largest reason for burnout in shelter workers. If you don't like what they are doing, get involved. Organize the community, educate them on what is going on. But most importantly, don't start throwing blame around. Get active and volunteer at the shelter. Learn what resources might be needed to make things better, encourage the city's animal control to ask for what they need, and encourage your community to help provide them.
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Aug 29, 2014 16:18
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I volunteer for the municipal shelter in Seattle and it has spoiled me as far as my expectations of what a shelter can be goes. It isn't well funded by the city by any means but it does okay and it has a volunteer created and ran non-profit that supports it and supports it well. The foundation paid for the dog kennel area remodel last year and is paying for an all new cat and critter area this year. It, along with grants from PetCo, pays for "free" cat adoptions for older cats during the summer when we get inundated with kittens and need the space. It pays for medical care ranging from UTI meds to bladder surgery. It does this while competing with the Humane Society for donations (which it doesn't do well against, HS gets a ton more money locally every year) and while competing with the perception that if you take your animal to the shelter (or donate money to it) you are effectively killing them because that is what shelters do. I don't know the feasibility of setting up a similar non-profit in other areas but it is worth looking at. Seattle is a pretty well-off city as far as the population is concerned and they love to donate to stuff - money, things, whatever, they like to give it - so it might be a right place, right time sort of thing. Still, it doesn't hurt to take a look or maybe get in contact with the foundation here to see if they have any tips (Seattle Animal Shelter Foundation) Anyway, as stated, I'm spoiled about these things, but I can't imagine not being able to interact with shelter animals. We have a "fit with fido" program that pairs up runners with dogs that need to run and they go out twice a week. We take some of the dogs on walks around a local lake. Some can't do either of those things so they get taken for short walks around the shelter or just taken out to the meet & greet corrals for a little bit of play time (or just played with in their kennel.) They get toys and soft beds and kongs with treats. No expiration dates. No euthing for space. Sick? Diagnose and if it's treatable then treat it. Behavior issue? Figure out what it is then work with the animal to manage it. That isn't to say that animals aren't euthed, they are. We had a cat that would randomly attack its owner get euthed because it was batshit crazy and unadoptable. We had a dog with the prey drive to end all prey drives leap an 8ft fence to go after a toy poodle being walked down the road near the corrals. It seriously injured the poodle and earned itself some euth-juice. Same for the dog that turned on one of the animal control officers and did some damage. Then there are the animals that are just so old and sick that there is no other choice but to euth them. So it happens but it happens for reasons other than "no space" or "been here too long." Volunteering is both the best and worst thing I do with my time. Best because I get to do things like help a little kid find that pet that they'll remember forever as their first. Best because I get see older animals get their second chance. Best because I get play with kittens yet not have any responsibility for them whatsoever. Worst because of all the reasons you can think of. But I still do it.
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Aug 29, 2014 19:59
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I wish I had any advice or input besides what's already been said here about this whole one week policy shift thing. Maybe consider trying to find breed specific rescue groups in nearby areas and reaching out to them? In all honesty though, it really doesn't look that good from here.  One of the hardest things to remember while doing this work is that unfortunately, no matter how hard you try, you just can't save them all. It sucks an it feels awful to feel like you've let an animal down, both individually and as our role as a caretaker to these guys as a whole, but you just have to pick up yourself and remember that there are so many more out there that ARE within reach to be helped.
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Aug 29, 2014 20:19
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Getting inducted to do volunteer work at an RSPCA shelter this weekend. Will basically be cleaning cages, washing laundry, playing with the animals to keep them socialised and so forth. Really looking forward to it, have been wanting to do this for a long time.
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Sep 9, 2014 01:18
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Robbie Fowler posted:Getting inducted to do volunteer work at an RSPCA shelter this weekend. How was it?
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Sep 15, 2014 02:01
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mookerson posted:How was it? Have to go back next Wednesday for some sort of training and after that's completed we get to do some shifts. Was mostly dogs and cats but there were also a few birds, rats, goats, horses, cows and one solitary pig (who was basking in his own trough lol).
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Sep 17, 2014 00:26
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So I finally broke and am taking one of the cats from the shelter home next week. Made it 7 months which I think is impressive. Hopefully this one doesn't die Christmas night.
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Sep 19, 2014 00:53
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So sheter goons, I have a question about policy with rescue groups. Our local AZ Humane Society gets overflowing with animals. This sadly happens a lot. What they do then is mass email local rescues and tell the groups hey, every animal that is brought in will be put down the same day, we have no space, you guys want to come down and grab whatever you want? The rescue groups beeline to the shelter, fill up every kennel they can, and take the animals to foster homes. And sometimes an animal gets adopted, and then escapes its home, or is turned into the shelter (when the animals are adopted from our rescue we tell the people in no uncertain terms, for any reason, it doesn't work out, bring the animal back, we will take it, no questions asked), the AHS scans the chip, and most of the time it reads for the rescue (the new owners never get the animal registered under their name sometimes), so the AHS calls the rescue and BOOM, someone runs down to get the animal out of there stat. "Hey we got one of your cats and or dogs here, come get them!" But that policy changed yesterday. AHS released a notice that if any animal is turned into the shelter, even if the microchip reads for any rescue, they will not return the animal. They will keep the animal for the set time, or if they are full, will put it down asap. They won't let anyone know, and even if somehow we did find out, they won't release the animal to the rescue group. Because 'rescues are not owners, we will only return animals to owners.' Am I the only one who thinks this is hosed up? More animals will be put down because they don't have the room when the rescue I work with has always always taken back any found animals, regardless of medical bills or health.
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Sep 20, 2014 16:55
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Cowslips Warren posted:So sheter goons, I have a question about policy with rescue groups. Its odd, but I bet its likely due to the time involved or something to that effect. Or maybe a rescue refused to return the animal to its owner and cause the shelter some legal headache. wtftastic fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Sep 20, 2014 |
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Sep 20, 2014 20:03
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Cowslips Warren posted:But that policy changed yesterday. AHS released a notice that if any animal is turned into the shelter, even if the microchip reads for any rescue, they will not return the animal. They will keep the animal for the set time, or if they are full, will put it down asap. They won't let anyone know, and even if somehow we did find out, they won't release the animal to the rescue group. Because 'rescues are not owners, we will only return animals to owners.' It's probably just a move to reduce legal hassles, and to 'get new owners to change the dogdamn chip registration'. Also probably for rescues to broaden their return policy, they might not all be so as liberal as yours. They're probably just sick of scanning for microchips and getting 'XYZ Furbaby Rescue 12' half the time. It probably is a bit of a dick move, but state and county shelters can be full of bureaucrats and dicks. Heck, I would not be suprised if this was the part of some smartypants going all rules lawyer. I'd suggest having your rescue adoption process include mandatory microchip re-registration.
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Sep 21, 2014 05:02
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Sounds like they ought to put the foster person's info on the chip in case the new owner never updates it. Then at least it has a specific person on there that the shelter can call and hold responsible for pick-up, which I assume is the issue. Unless the shelter decide to be assholes and not call if they know the person is affiliated with a rescue, I guess. Don't know why they would, but it's entirely possible.
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Sep 29, 2014 15:57
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Cowslips Warren posted:So sheter goons, I have a question about policy with rescue groups. I work at one of the larger AZ rescues and even though we has a return-whenever-you-want-for-any-reason policy we still get a lot returns via transfers from county and humane. So yeah that's messed up. Is there any sort of link for this policy change or is it all internal?
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Oct 3, 2014 02:49
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Did my first unassisted shift last saturday, worked 5 hours cleaning pens, playing with dogs and cats, feeding them, checking them for tickets and other things that may be suss. was good, really enjoyed it. although it's sad the animals are in there (including some that have spent the majority of their life in the facility (14 months old, been there just shy of 12 months), i guess by giving them attention and cheering them up as well as making their pen look presentable, it will hopefully help find them a home. Robbie Fowler fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Oct 15, 2014 |
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Oct 15, 2014 02:07
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