Should You Volunteer at a Shelter or Rescue?

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Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, amy Castro, and I want to talk today about volunteering. It doesn't matter to me whether you volunteer with a local rescue or with a shelter, but if you're an animal person and you're an animal lover, you need to get involved with rescue and sheltering in some way. It's just one of the many ways that you can show your real, true love and caring for the animals in our world, not just the ones that live inside your home. So I want to start off by talking about some of the benefits that you gain as a volunteer, and I'll speak from my personal experience and then also things that I have heard from fellow volunteers. Number one is knowing that you're helping people who actually need help. Volunteers are essential to keeping rescues open and to keeping shelters running efficiently For our rescue, starlight Outreach and Rescue. Our ability to help animals is directly correlated to the number of volunteers that we have, so there is just something about being needed that is really nice. When you volunteer for an organization, you also know when you're working with animals, whether in a shelter or a rescue is that you are making a difference. You can see it every single day Every dog that you walk, that got some exercise today and maybe got out of a kennel at your local shelter. Every kitten that you handle. That made it more adoptable because now it's a little bit less scared of people has a direct impact on that animal and on the people that are going to have contact with that animal in the future. So you're definitely making a major difference when you're physically getting involved, and I think that's a key point to make too. Is that being on the books of a rescue or a shelter, saying that you're a volunteer, is one thing. Actually getting actively involved is something else. I'll speak to our group. We probably have well over 100 people on our mailing list and I'm not talking about people who just signed up for the mailing list. I'm talking about people who signed up and said they wanted to volunteer, and we probably have less than 25 that actually actively do something in any given month. Now, that's okay in the grand scheme of things, as long as those 25 people are active. But really think about what your role is going to be when you get involved and make sure that that's very clear to the organization, because it's very difficult for us when we feel like we've got 100 people but yet when we need something, it's the same handful of people over and over again, and I'll get into it in just a second and talk about the different ways that you can get involved without necessarily being a hands-on volunteer. Another benefit that I have found, and I think a lot of people do, is just your physical and mental health. Now, I'm not saying that sometimes working in rescue is not something that you want to pull your hair out over, and it can be very stressful. On the other hand, the physical activity that you get from playing with animals walking dogs, things like that obviously very beneficial, and just the stress relief of interacting with animals is a proven benefit to our physical and mental health. So you have that as well. Depending upon your group. There are also very often social benefits to being involved in rescues. I know for us we try to do a quarterly get together. That's kind of informational but also fun. We do our first Saturday adoption events. It's an opportunity to get with other people who are volunteering and find out what they're working on. So you know, if you're looking for an outlet to interact with people who are like-minded and animal lovers like you, then getting involved in rescue might be a great way to go about doing that. One of the hidden benefits of getting involved in rescue that I have found personally is first dibs baby. So when an animal comes into the rescue system, if it's something that you have wanted for your entire life you've been waiting for that pet to come along then you very often will get the first opportunity to adopt that animal. Now, on one hand, we don't want people adopting every animal that comes through the door of the rescue, because then they'll be full and then they'll be too busy to volunteer. But at the same time, you know, if you have a healthy level of adoption to fostering or volunteering ratio, then it's probably okay. I know my dog, gwenevere, who I adore. She's my baby. She's actually the mascot for the rescue. She's on a lot of our special event t-shirts and things like that. I got first dibs on her because she was at animal control and I was volunteering there at the time. Granted, she looked terrible, she was covered in mange and she's stuck to high heaven and of course she wanted to be all over me and it was really gross. But I saw a lot of potential and I always wanted a squishy face dog. So there we go, we've got one. We actually just got into the rescue Another animal that I have wanted for a while. I may not keep her because I, you know, sometimes you need to keep them moving, but we've got a Sphinx cat. Now those cats, when people purchase them, they are very expensive. They can range anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000. If you were to purchase a Sphinx and I'm not necessarily advocating purchasing, but to have one come into a rescue and to have the opportunity to have a pet that you know for an adoption fee versus thousands and thousands of dollars, can definitely be kind of nice. If you're somebody who is not a people person and you're more of an animal person, there are lots of opportunities to operate independently when you're volunteering within a rescue, in a shelter too. So if you're not into that social side of it and you just want to go and walk dogs for your local animal shelter, I guarantee you they would love to have you and have you get involved. For those who are looking for work experience or service hours, that's another opportunity. Oftentimes that's going to be what we get, like high school students and college students that will come to our program. They're looking to bolster their college resume or just get some out in the world work experience, and it's a great opportunity to do that, and then you know. Another thing to consider too is that when it comes to volunteering in animal rescue or animal sheltering, very often you are in complete control of what you do. Now it depends on the organization, of course, but for I know, for our rescue if you only want to work with cats, that's fine. If you only want to volunteer at events, that's fine. We take people where they are and we will use their skills and their interests to fill in the blanks to make a complete team. So you get to control your hours. You get to control how many hours you contribute. Every once in a while you will come across groups that do have a minimum, and I'm pretty much a strong believer in that. I feel like if you don't at least put a minimum number of hours per month even if it's like for us, if somebody comes and does something two hours a month, that's great because it keeps you in the loop about what's going on with the organization. It keeps you up to date on current practices and procedures, so it's not like if you show up after six months, I've got to now completely retrain you, which sort of defeats the purpose of having a volunteer when I have to be out there walking them through everything every time they come back. So, but you will have that level of control to decide. You know what you want to do, how you want to do it and when. So lots and lots of benefits to getting involved in, like I said, your rescue or shelters, and let's talk about some of the things that organizations are looking for people to do, so you can get an idea before you go to a rescue or a shelter to say, hey, this is what I'm interested in, this is what I'm trying to accomplish, because otherwise they they're going to make assumptions about what you're interested in and then there's not going to be a good, a good match. So obviously, all organizations that are nonprofits that raise funds are looking for donors. So to me, that's a way that you can get involved with. Rescue is being a donor, and what I'm talking about here would be either being a major contributor like you're going to do something at the end of the year, that is, a large and largest relative, but a large donation but probably what's even more helpful to most organizations is becoming a monthly donor, even if it's 10 or $15 a month that you have automatically going to that organization. And here's why, if I know as an organization that I have a hundred monthly donors and each one of them is donating 10 bucks a month, let's say, then I know I have a thousand dollars coming in every month and it really helps for the organization to be able to budget when they know they have those donations coming in consistently versus the inconsistent. You know, somebody sees a picture on Facebook and decides to donate towards that animal, or they get to the end of the tax year and it's like, oh, I've got a. You know I've got to make some charitable contributions so I'll fire a check off to an organization. But that monthly recurring donation is something that is super helpful and super important to nonprofit organizations. Another way, obviously, would be to volunteer at events. So maybe you don't want to get involved in the day to day cleaning and things like that, but you happen to be good at either planning events or just very social when you're out in public with people, then you can certainly volunteer with an organization to help out at whatever event they might have like. For us we have a monthly adoption event, so there's a monthly opportunity for somebody to spend three hours with us to help, to help greet the public, show animals, process adoptions, and obviously we provide all the training on how to do that. We also do bigger events. We do a holiday fundraiser event. That's all online. So if you've got some online skills or you're great with social media, that can be something that's super, super helpful to an organization. And then some organizations do big public events, whether it's some type of gala or we do have done in the past, and we're going to probably alternate every other year a dogtoberfest, which is a big public event with vendors and food trucks and things like that. Well, as you can imagine, it takes quite a few people to pull that off, not only the day of the event but also in the planning process. So there's even within a large event like our dogtoberfest, you've got the opportunity to be involved in the process from the beginning, or you could just be that person that signs up to volunteer the day of the event and work a booth or take tickets or take payments or whatever it might be. So I think by just kind of outlying what I've outlined so far, you can see that there's quite a range of opportunities to not only commit to an organization financially, but also based on the time available, because people will a lot of times say, well, I don't have time to volunteer. It's like, well, do you have one day a month that you could come and take payments for tickets? Then you do have time, you can do that. It doesn't have to be a daily commitment. That said, obviously our bread and butter is is direct animal care volunteers and for most organizations that's going to come in maybe one of three forms. The first one would be actually volunteering at a facility where you go once a week, once a day, once a month again to your schedule and provide the daily care that those animals need. It could range from cleaning, which that's usually the biggest help that we need, to socializing, which literally means playing and handling animals, to maybe assisting with medical procedures, things like that, and again, that comes down to your choice. The one thing I will say on the day to day is that I and I think y'all can correct me in the feedback on our Facebook page or in comments on our website on this episode is that I feel like maybe that's some of the reason why we have this hundred people that sign up, but only 25 or so or fewer, actually actively volunteer, because I think there's sometimes a bit of a disconnect as to what volunteering in animal rescue is like. You know reality versus what I envision it's going to be like, and I think very often people envision that I'm going to go to this facility and I'm going to sit there and pet cats or play with kittens, or I'm going to bring my kids to do that, and there's definitely opportunities for that. At the same time, somebody's got to scoop the poop, somebody's got to get out in the heat and walk the dogs. As a matter of fact, my dogs are barking in the background. They're probably wanting to go out. So to think that that's the only thing that you're going to do you know, again. It's a possibility, but I think I would make that really clear when you volunteer with an organization what your limitations are, what your interests are, and that way they can be really clear with you whether that's a fit for their needs. I know for me, when I first started volunteering at Animal Control gosh in 2010, years and years ago, I kind of did everything and then I realized over time and this is going to be terrible to say, because I love dogs but in Texas, when it's 9 million degrees outside and you've got 25 dogs who are untrained, big dogs jumping all over me with their dirty, poopy feet and I'm sweating like pig and I'm outside, that stopped becoming fun. So I was not really interested in doing that. But rather than quitting volunteering altogether, I kind of took a step back and said, okay, what can I do? What am I interested in doing? That's pretty much how I got involved with working a lot with cats, but also with organizations that have a brick and mortar facility where they have a storefront, let's say, where people come and visit animals, working the front desk, answering phones. All of that is helpful. Every single thing that we can get a volunteer to do, where we don't have to pay staff and we're a 100% volunteer run, but other organizations aren't, especially bigger ones. But anytime they can get somebody to do something for the organization that they don't have to pay staff for, then that's donated money that doesn't have to go to expenses, that money will go directly to animal care. So definitely a benefit to getting involved on a variety of levels. And, again, just get with your organizations and explore what the options are. Another opportunity which is, I think, really really rewarding, not only from a personal standpoint but also for those who have children, would be fostering in your home, and that does take a different level of commitment. So, in general, if I have a healthy, adoptable, ready-to-go animal, I'm generally not going to put that in foster care if I have an alternative, because I want that animal to be accessible to potential adopters. So, unless you are willing to bring that animal someplace to show it maybe it's a public park, maybe it is a store where your rescue organization has a presence the animal control facility, if you're volunteering for your animal control. So if you're taking home a highly adoptable pet that is quote-unquote on the market getting ready to be adopted, you're going to need to be prepared to either bring that animal back and forth or have people come to your home if you're comfortable with that. Most of the time it ends up being the back and forth thing and that is totally fine. For us in our organization we do very little of that. What we need help with in fostering is for animals that are not ready to be adopted. So that would include, let's say, we've got a cat or a dog that had to have an amputation and that animal is still recuperating from surgery and needs to be kept quiet. So we might need a foster to do that. Because being in a home where it's quieter, where you're the only dog getting attention or one of a few dogs getting attention, versus being in our shelter building where you've got dog sparking and you're not getting that close, close one-on-one attention, you're going to get better post-operative care in that environment and being able to give that animal medications and things like that. So surgical cases definitely we need fosters for those and usually they're not a ton of labor but they can be. So make sure you know what you're getting yourself into. Another thing that we need a lot of foster help with is baby animals, and especially if you're not going to volunteer with a rescue, but you volunteer with your local area animal shelter as much as people don't want to hear this, many, many shelters when they get baby animals in. If they don't have a volunteer program, those baby animals are going to be euthanized if they are young enough that they cannot be left overnight. So, for example, newborn kittens within three weeks old, let's say, those animals cannot be left overnight. So if at the end of the day, a volunteer hasn't come forward to foster those kittens, those animals are often euthanized. Because it would be cruel to leave an animal overnight that needs to be fed every two hours and leave it for 14 hours before the facility opens again. And that happens a lot around our country. So something at least in the US. I'm not sure about other countries, but definitely happens a lot in the US. So if you are willing to take a week of your time, a month of your time, to give up a little bit of sleep to bottle feed baby animals, because oftentimes in the beginning it's around the clock and then as they get older, just like human babies, they need fewer feedings and farther between. But it is a commitment, but it is a real lifesaver for organizations that take in those baby animals along the way. So fostering in your home for medical cases, fostering in your home for baby animals Sometimes hard to place, animals that need a little more socialization or maybe need a more quiet environment. So it may not even be a lot of labor per se, but it might just be an animal that's not doing well in a shelter setting that needs to be in more of a home setting. That can be another type of foster that we're looking for. And you know we've even got a cat in our system right now named Gilligan, who came to us very obese I don't even know how many pounds overweight. Well, I know the cat weighs 25 pounds and it probably needs to be more like 13. So there you go, there's your math, and so he's in foster care, because being in a cage in our catarie is probably not the best thing for him, getting out two, three times a day and stretching his legs. So he's in foster care on a diet and you know the foster is working hard to try to get him some exercise and get some weight off. So that could be a bit of a project and that all of the fostering that you do is is probably more, more rewarding than anything else because you really get to know that animal. And just to kind of wrap things up too, is that anytime we get volunteers who are actively involved with the animal care, not only does that make that animal more adoptable because it's had that human contact, especially if it hasn't had a lot of that before, but probably the biggest benefit is you really get to know who that animal is and can pass that information on to potential adopters or in advertising the pet. If I've got you know your average animal shelters, got cages and cages of cats and cages and you know kennels and kennels of dogs, and the staff may not get a great chance to get to really know that animal's personality because they basically have time to clean, feed, let them in and out and that's kind of it. It's a very impersonal in many instances level of care, not because they don't care but because of the sheer volume of animals that they are caring for. So when you have volunteers that can come in and work with those animals or take them home and foster them and they get to know oh, Buffy really likes her belly scratched, or hey, did you know? Not only is Susie house trained but she knows sit and she knows shake and she knows, you know, sit up. Those are all things that nobody would know and all of those things make that animal more adoptable. So I'll get off my soapbox now, but I just really wanted to put this out here for all of you who are animal lovers, and even if you have your own pets, take the time to consider how important it is to get involved with shelters and rescues on some level. I've outlined some of the benefits for you. I've outlined some options and opportunities. There's probably even more that I haven't even thought to mention. But just make a phone call, send an email to your local organization and find out what their program is about and what kind of help they need and see if it might be a fit for you in your lifestyle. I don't think there's anybody that has ever regretted getting involved on some level to helping animals move on from being stray and abandoned to finding forever homes. And I know for me been doing this for 13 years now, which I had to do the math in my head for a second 13 years now I've had thousands. I stopped counting at 3000 fosters. That's how many, and that was several years ago. And as much as it can be heartbreaking at times and as much as it can be maddening at times, overall, it's really the thing that gives my life the most meaning, and so I hope that for you as well. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk. And you know what, if you don't give your own pet a hug this week which hopefully you will, if you have one, get down to that local shelter and give some love to one of those shelter pets who need some attention.