Your local animal shelter is doing a hard job in tough times.
How can we help?
We can’t adopt all of the animals, we can’t ever give enough money, we may not have much time, we aren’t skilled at tasks that always need doing, but … we do want to know that we CAN help!
What can we do to support our local shelter and its staff? How can we make the job a little easier for the staffers in the trenches and the animals waiting for homes? I asked friends online for their ideas.
I said, “If you’ve worked or volunteered in a shelter, you know what supporters can do to help. Your kindest suggestions, please?”
Here are some of their answers.
Amy Suggars (Ohio) I adopted two kittens during kitten season!
Photo by Amy Suggars
Jennifer Grant (Massachusetts) ‘Like’ and ‘share’ shelter and rescue social media. Give them five stars on media.
Volunteer to sit in kennels with dogs and dribble high-value treats occasionally. Shoot for sitting 20 to 30 minutes. I used a simple camping stool for sitting comfortably.
Foster animals for overnights, weekends, or longer. The dogs and cats need calm, not entertainment. Give them a comfy bed and house to take a break from the shelter, where they are probably stressed and lacking sleep. Research shows even a short foster is hugely beneficial to the animal.
Tell everyone about the wonderful animals at the shelter.
Check shelter wishlists for needed items.
Donate adjustable harnesses of all sizes and sturdy leashes with the condition the shelter send adopted dogs home in them.
Take dogs for sniff walks, letting them relax, dribbling treats occasionally. Sit and relax on the walks a few times.
Ask shelters and rescues about their volunteer needs. Just giving the animals treats in a safe way at shelters is HUGE! It helps them approach people and that is what will get them adopted. It doesn’t have to be complicated at all.
Trish Ryan (South Carolina) Volunteer to help in any way possible! Whether it’s cleaning, answering phones, walking dogs, cuddling kittens, making enrichment activities, bathing, brushing, organizing—these and more help staff address daily tasks.
Foster.
Take a dog for a ride, hit the drive-through for a pup cup.
Discover pet-friendly stores; take them there.
Find a quiet spot in the park and let a dog just chill with you. Any time out of the kennel is so important for every dog.
R+ trainers, grab a clicker and some yummy treats and c/t for calm four-on-the-floor behavior.
Go ‘live’ in a community; offer to set up a collection station requesting food, litter, treats, toys, office supplies, etc.
We just started a pool program where we take a few dogs to a dock-diving pool a couple times a month and it’s enrichment for the pups and the people too!
Share, share, share to social media!
Jessica Theisen de González (New York) If you have the means, send over some coffee and donuts one morning, or sandwiches or a snack selection for staff and volunteers to share.
Colette Kase (Mexico) Be informed and understand that it is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Care for your frontline animal shelter workers, as they do an incredibly hard job and are often the targets of abuse.
Find out about the causes of local pet overpopulation. Is it accidental litters and ignorance, or lack of access to sterilization services? Is it intentional backyard breeding? Is it puppy farming? Is it economic hardship? Is it lack of access to pet-friendly housing? Is it irresponsible re-homing? Each of these factors needs to be tackled differently. Advocate, organize and lobby for change.
Volunteer for whatever it is your shelter says needs doing.
Kat McKenna (Washington) FOSTER. VOLUNTEER. BE THEIR VOICES.
Ursula Hoburg (Pennsylvania) Foster, take dogs out for field trips, volunteer for dog-walking, make and distribute enrichment, make enrichment items, donate money, treats, supplies; advocate for adoption.
Andrea Burggrabe (Indiana) Foster. Dog day-outs. Volunteer. Take pics of dogs. Create social media posts. Draft fun adoption bios.
Em E Wolf (Colorado) Volunteer, walk dogs, spend time helping kitties, share Pod To The Rescue with them as a free resource on behavior! Consider donating to local spay/neuter clinics.
Kathy Smith (North Carolina) I’m helping local shelters through my real estate brokerage with the Free Dog With Every Home Sold program. It’s my way of giving back and saying thank you to my amazing clients! After closing, they can choose to have pet adoption or training fees covered or even have a donation made in their name to a rescue they care about. It’s all about helping more animals find homes and supporting the people who love them. Because to me, a house isn’t truly a home without a little purring or a wagging tail (or two).
Oona McGuinness (Washington) I brag about my gorgeous pets constantly. In my entire adult life, I have never purchased a pet from a breeder—all of them have been adopted, and a few were tamed from wild stray populations as well. If you can, I say, be the change in your exact neighborhood. I will always feed and water strays if I see them, or support others who do. No creature deserves to starve, especially those brought to environments by humans. I always try to catch the babies and get them into adoptions to help control feral populations. In the last year, five kittens have been brought in by me (one I kept). These efforts support shelters by keeping some of that work off their plates. While we’d all love if adult strays got adopted, the very real truth is that that is rare and more time-consuming—meaning that space is not open for more popular adoptable pets like kittens, which can help shelters generate funds faster. Often adult strays are perfectly fine where they are, aside from not being fixed.
Hilary G Lane (Colorado) Many rural and shelters have very few volunteers and little pet food, and they have limitations on how long they can keep their animals because of lack of funding. If you can’t volunteer in person, the best thing would be to donate pet food if you can, and especially donate to their local spay and neuter clinics—many of which are mobile vans that travel to different locations. Those shelters are overrun with animals that are usually not claimed and have a five-day window. You can hold a fundraising drive on your Facebook page or other local neighborhood groups for those spay and neuter clinics.
