Volunteering is one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever encountered. Currently I have focused on volunteering at animal shelters where I am able to get hands on experience with animals of all ages and sizes. I have been volunteering at Orange County Animal Services for almost 4 months, it has been so rewarding to come in and try to get animals adopted out to appropriate households. It isn't easy to work at the shelter as I've discovered, on my first day I had to attend an orientation, we had 48 people attend the orientation that day. We then took a tour of the premises, which receives an average of 52 animals a day (about 26 dogs and 26 cats). We walked through the kennels filled with dogs, and shown isolation where there sick, injured, people aggressive, and owned animals.
During my orientation my mom had planned to get her nails done and get a bite to eat, but the nail place was closed and she ended up listening in on the orientation and joining me for the tour. It was shocking to see the sheer amount of dogs as well as the immense amount of barking. This tour and orientation inspired my mom to also become a volunteer, and convinced my dad to become one too. We all shadowed a previous volunteer and began training, luckily, because I had volunteered at another shelter I knew the majority of the protocol and my training was over within a few hours; but only after I passed my written exam. My parents however, took a couple weekends to train and adjust to the daily regime of adopting out dogs. Out of the 48 people that attended the orientation that weekend only 3 went on to become volunteers, including myself.
I have now personally adopted out over 30 dogs and have worked with dogs of all ages, sizes, and temperaments. It has enlightened me to the enormity of the overpopulation of animals that we have in America and the importance of adopting dogs from a shelter as opposed to a breeder. It has given me a new respect for people coming in to adopt a dog that they wish to adopt and the enormous amount of work they put in to make these dogs a permanent member of their family. The volunteers work as hard as they can to give dogs the best chance of being adopted before they are humanely euthanized. Many people that I have interacted with disagree with the shelter and how they euthanize animals, but the truth is because of the massive amount of animals we receive every day, we can not adequately provide every animal the time and attention they need. The shelter calls other rescues to try and alleviate the amount of animals we have, and give each dog an adequate amount of time for them to be adopted out.
During my orientation my mom had planned to get her nails done and get a bite to eat, but the nail place was closed and she ended up listening in on the orientation and joining me for the tour. It was shocking to see the sheer amount of dogs as well as the immense amount of barking. This tour and orientation inspired my mom to also become a volunteer, and convinced my dad to become one too. We all shadowed a previous volunteer and began training, luckily, because I had volunteered at another shelter I knew the majority of the protocol and my training was over within a few hours; but only after I passed my written exam. My parents however, took a couple weekends to train and adjust to the daily regime of adopting out dogs. Out of the 48 people that attended the orientation that weekend only 3 went on to become volunteers, including myself.
I have now personally adopted out over 30 dogs and have worked with dogs of all ages, sizes, and temperaments. It has enlightened me to the enormity of the overpopulation of animals that we have in America and the importance of adopting dogs from a shelter as opposed to a breeder. It has given me a new respect for people coming in to adopt a dog that they wish to adopt and the enormous amount of work they put in to make these dogs a permanent member of their family. The volunteers work as hard as they can to give dogs the best chance of being adopted before they are humanely euthanized. Many people that I have interacted with disagree with the shelter and how they euthanize animals, but the truth is because of the massive amount of animals we receive every day, we can not adequately provide every animal the time and attention they need. The shelter calls other rescues to try and alleviate the amount of animals we have, and give each dog an adequate amount of time for them to be adopted out.
This volunteer experience has really inspired me to continue working with animals. It has allowed me to become observant of possible illnesses, injuries, or temperament problems in the dogs I take out. For example just the other day someone was shadowing me in order to see if he wanted to follow through and become a volunteer. I wanted to show him how to operate the kennel doors and show him where the backyards were located, where we take out the dogs and interact with potential adopters. We had taken out a dog and were playing with it, as I was playing with him I noticed that the dog was sitting in a funky position, I also noted that his hind legs were oddly positioned when he walked. I knew something was wrong, I carefully flipped the dog on his back and noticed his incision wound from his recent neutering had completely opened up and began to spew blood. I immediately called over a staff member who rushed him to the clinic, thankfully he was successfully treated.
I take pride in the work I do at the shelter and the amount of fantastic dogs I have interacted with, what many people don't know we have many puppies, trained adult dogs, purebreds, and lovely senior dogs. A lot of the people I have spoken to had a preconceived notion that the dogs in the shelter are all untrained dogs who have a horrible temperament, but they are in fact wonderful pets who have experienced unfortunate circumstances that have led them to the shelter. The shelter also takes many precautions by giving each dog it's vaccinations, a microchip, and they are all spayed or neutered. But before you rush to the nearest shelter keep in mind the enormous amount of responsibility a new pet is and do plenty of research on what the shelter can not screen out such as separation anxiety.
Overall I take pride in the work that I do at the shelter and the amount of animals I have adopted out that now have spectacular families who will provide them with the love they all deserve.
Overall I take pride in the work that I do at the shelter and the amount of animals I have adopted out that now have spectacular families who will provide them with the love they all deserve.