Heroic Hearts

I came across this contest through  Joan Sinden's blog (dogkisser.blogspot.com) and thought I would share it. Being a volunteer myself at the SPCA in Burnside I know first hand how much of a difference volunteers really make at the shelter and they truly deserve to win a day of pampering. I thought I would share why it is volunteers play such a crucial roll at our local shelters.

I am currently on leave from volunteering until my shoulder heals but I have been with the SPCA for almost a year now doing dog care work and recently switching to cat care. I helped out with the morning shift and I must admit there were days when the absolute last thing I wanted to do was get up early in the morning to go and clean up messy kennels when I've already got that at home. But I would get up anyway and by the time I got to the shelter I was always so glad I decided to come in. The mornings at the shelter in both dog and cat care are hectic. I usually volunteered on Tuesday or Wednesday mornings and would usually be the only volunteer helping with the dogs when there was supposed to be two. There is usually only one staff member assigned to take care of all the dogs as well, so without volunteers not only do they have to get all the dogs out and clean the kennels themselves, but they would also need to get temperament testings done, meet and greets with other shelter dogs and potential adoptees as well as giving dogs medications and working on training them. That's a lot for just one dog, but try doing all that for 15-20+ dogs.

 The responsibility of the volunteer was to get all the dogs outside first thing in the morning and to clean and tidy their kennels while outside. Seems simple enough but when some dogs can't get outside until after 10 am the messes that you have to clean up get bigger and bigger. There is also often disease control protocols where certain dogs are only permitted in certain runs outside which reduces the number of available runs to put dogs out. Once all the dogs have gotten outside and and have clean kennels they get rotated back outside to get time out of the kennels, spend time playing with the volunteers, socializing with the volunteers and some volunteers work on training basic obedience. This is still a lot to accomplish for one person trying to work with up to 4 dogs in separate runs at the same time, all while also taking care of basic cleaning such as laundry and cleaning the floors. When the weather was warm I would also help to groom dogs who were getting a little on the stinky side, no one wants a stinky dog!

Cats are almost just as hectic, there can be up to 30 cats in a single room at a time. The staff member is responsible to administering all medication while the volunteer starts cleaning kennels. The cats are much more prone to upper respiratory infections so disease prevention means that instead of taking 5 minutes to clean a kennel when in reality it can take up to 20 minutes to clean a single kennel properly.

In either case, without the volunteers present, the staff have triple the work load of their already large workload. Volunteers take time out of their days to go out of their way to help animals in need. It is often dirty, smelly and thankless work, but the looks on the animals faces and knowing how much we help to make the shelter run more smoothly makes it all worth while.

So if you know someone who volunteers with shelters or with any animal need, make sure to thank them for their time and the effort they provide. Also if you feel they deserve a day of pampering to thank them for all their hard work, make sure to nominate them!