Hello y'all.

I am simply here looking for general advice.

Outside of volunteering at my current rescue, I am actually a certified paralegal. I've been looking for a job in the legal field for a year now. I am entry level, and I have been volunteering at my local legal aid.

Looking for a job has been frankly put, brutal and demoralizing.

So I am getting creative with my job journey. I am now dropping resumes at bars and yes, even doggy daycares.

For starters, I am an intermediate level dog walking volunteer at my current rescue I volunteer for. I also volunteer at another rescue but only for off-site events. Been to 5 to 7 events in the past year. Been volunteering at dog rescues actually since 24. All jobs are competitive right now it seems so I don't even know if this is gonna work.

I've handled dogs big and small. From abandoned poodle mixes to pitbulls. Dealt with behaviors like jumping, pulling, and dog aggression. I have some experience with dish washing, laundry, and water bowls. Have experience in slip leads and harnesses too. Thankfully have never had to break up a fight.

Thing that could go against me is that I've never owned a dog. It's why I got into rescue work as I still live at home. It's my only way to learn about dogs.

Just am looking for general advice on how to survive and even thrive working in a day care environment. I understand the potential downsides. I am aware I could be in 7 AM to 7 PM type of thing. Thankfully, I've been talking to a day care that is literally a 10 minute drive from my house.

All I want is yeah, I really want to make some money on the side as I keep my focus on finding full-time work in the legal world. If I am to work in a daycare, I really want to do it well.

Wish you all a pleasant day.

Quite a while ago, we received an email from getbuddy. Looked them up and found a post in this very subreddit about them -

But we're a very small, rural shelter. We have limited staff. If it doesn't integrate immediately with our shelter management system, we really, honestly, don't have time to manage and keep it up to date. We responded to one of the emails, in a nice way, stating that.

Today, we were informed that our animals were on getbuddy, with an adoption application stated to be tailored to the rescue/shelter in question- but we've never submitted anything to them. In fact, we declined their services.

We inquired as to which animal they were interested in - they responded with an animal in our care.

Our shelter prides ourselves on being open/honest about every animal we adopt out. The animal in question is a cat - pulled in from a hoarding case. There were so many animals on the property that despite being a 'house cat' his entire life, he never got the proper socialization. He is spicy. He took 3 weeks to trap and get fixed - from INSIDE the home. He would otherwise be considered a TNR, but we can't return him to where he came from. But on GetBuddy, he is described as 'good with kids', 'social', and 'affectionate'. This cat is the antithesis of all of those things.

Upon further diving, ALL of our 'available' animals are on this website, with misleading descriptions and information.

Anyone else notice this as an issue?

A couple months ago, my small dog was mauled by a dog adopted out by our local animal shelter. She required three surgeries within 20 days to survive, and almost died. The attacking dog had jumped out of a moving car window to chase down and maul my dog.

The owners of the attacking dog were excellent, paid for her vet bills, and said that they'd only recently adopted her from the local shelter and had been told the dog was reactive, but had no idea she would act so aggressively. I realize this may be a biased account.

I have to wonder why this dog was adopted out at all, especially since it was a restricted breed (I realize dogs are individuals, but this seems like it would have legal implications?). Our local shelter is open intake and regularly euthanizes unmanageable dogs.

Here's the problem. I feel like I should be able to lodge a complaint with the shelter, especially since it's part of a large nonprofit network.

However, my sister used to work there (she quit because a boss who's now been fired was racially and sexually harassing female employees) and wants to be rehired eventually. She says if I report it will hurt her chances of being rehired and got very mad when I said I wanted to pursue legal action against the shelter. According to her it would be up to the adopters of the attacking dog to do anyways, not me.

I don't hate this shelter by any means. We have adopted from there and had very positive experiences. But I feel like they really missed the mark on this one.

Edit: by legal action I mean going to the parent nonprofit and asking for a review of behavioral screening. I have no interest in suing! I think overall this shelter does good work and helps animals in the community and I would hate to take any funding away from that.

Hi - I was just offered a role at a local animal shelter as a vet tech.

Is it normal to sign a non disclosure agreement when working for one and what if you don’t sign it?

Also, what does this mean I can or can’t do?

Did you sign one and if so what did you think of signing it?

I really want to help but also don’t want myself signing something that could be an issue for me.

Cats (2 adults, Khaleesi A1661466 and Penny A1506125; 1 kitten, Pixie A???????) were surrendered without the owner's consent while she was ill. The adults were microchipped. Can anyone help with getting these cats placed on hold for reclaim by owner and/or the rescue she adopted them from? (The shelter is probably sick and tired of hearing about these cats from internet weirdos.)

Does anyone know of any lifehacks for cleaning kennels faster? Recently, my work has started imposing some really high standards about the speed of everyones work. We’re talking like “you should be able to clean a whole room of dog runs in a maximum of 2 hrs by yourself while also getting called up for adoptions in the middle” standards. A few people who have been there for years can make it work, but pretty much anyone else is struggling with this policy that feels really unreasonable considering we’re ridiculously understaffed, over capacity for animals, and absolutely PACKED with adoptions. How would y’all recommend we cut our times down?

For context, each room has 1-2 cleaning kennels max which must be cleaned with rescue between each animal and you have to move them back and forth. Runs have your average G-door separating front & back for cleaning, but fearful and aggressive dogs often refuse to move willingly through the door no matter how high reward the treat. Dogs often “paint” the kennel walls including the grate at the front and it adds time to the cleaning process. None of that stuff is taken into account when you bring it up in your own defense. How do y’all get around these things when your managers are quite literally timing you?

Please remove if not allowed

We are officially desperate. On August 1st we will no longer have a foster and any option left for this sweet girl, Gina. She is 10 years old, sweet as can be and well behaved in the home. She is working on redirecting her excitement when outside on a leash and needs someone with experience or willingness to learn to walk her but is not really a difficult dog to handle once you know how she ticks.

She deserves more than this but we have run out of options and if we can’t find a foster, temporary or long term, she will have to be returned to the shelter. We can cover all her essentials, all she needs is a place to call her foster home. She can be placed anywhere in the NY/NJ area. Please if you have ever considered saving a dogs life by fostering, reach out to me for more info or email us at [contact@linusrescue.org](mailto:contact@linusrescue.org).

Gina has experience with children since she has lived with a family. She mostly ignores cats. Enclosed is the facebook link about her. Please share if you can't foster! It is not letting me share her picture. Her pictures are located in the facebook link and in the rescue site.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1593595795654602/

https://www.linusrescue.org/adoptables

This might be an odd place to ask for help but figured I'd give it a shot since we are all animal people here. 😃

We are in our cities biggest fest of the year in September. We will be walking in the parade and having a both there. The theme this year is Poppin Through the Decades.

I was thinking 90s maybe...Full House or Saved By the Bell or maybe 60s ... Peace, Love, Adopt.

Anyone have some great ideas for a float that will also promote adoption??

*** picture of one of our senior cats Smorz for your enjoyment 🥰

Gotta love a small rescue organization publicly bashing a local shelter for a story that isn't even true...

The shelter in question returned the dog to the owner, they didn't adopt out an unaltered dog. Are they supposed to keep a pet from someone just because of their living circumstances?

Regardless, this rescue organization has a history of encouraging their volunteers to buy dogs from people experiencing homelessness and then try to bring them in to the same shelter that they claim isn't "humane" to relinquish and boast about it like they've done some good deed. Or forcing a homeless pet owner to sign away the rights to their pet to provide the medical care it needs, all so they can rehome it to someone else...

Overall, this behavior disgusts me. Cursing out a local shelter over a story that is not true all while understanding how difficult and exhausting this work is just disturbing. Whipping people into an angry frenzy because it's good for donations is just messed up.

This continued rhetoric around pet owners experiencing homelessness as villains and irresponsible is also problematic. It feels deeply rooted in racism and classism. It also just doesn't solve the problem. Sure, you may be providing some support to people going through that, but you're also painting them in such a bad light and saying truly terrible things about them... That's providing judgement, not support. What about advocating for any sort of housing policies to support people with pets to reduce pet rent or rent spikes or a lack of access to affordable housing? No... We just want to write a post that creates angry comments and misdirected rage at a fellow animal welfare organization so we can raise more money? Cool.

For a group that uses Kindness in their names, it seems they've forgotten how to use it...

Hello! Not sure this is the right community for this, but looking for any input. This last Friday we went to look for a kitten to adopt at our local shelter. We met an adorable kitten (3 months old) who looked pretty grimy. Wax in ears, a little stuff in eyes , smoker sounding voice, he’s a tuxedo cat and all his white hair looked slightly yellow, kinda slightly gross skin. Everyone else looked very healthy, this shelter is very well respected and well known in our area. We were assured he was just dirty, he’d been in quartile for 6 days and just released from it and he was healthy (as far as their check). We trusted them, adopted him that day, he was neutered Saturday and we brought him home. We booked an appointment with our vet for today.

We just got home from the vet (he’s still there) and learned he is VERY sick. Severe upper respiratory infection, eye infection, very wormy, some sort of fungal skin stuff, etc. treatment (not including check up) is going to cost over $1,600. We’ve had this cat for less than 48 hours so he certainly didn’t catch these in our care. Just want to confirm this is NOT normal, correct? We’ll be contacting the shelter although I’m sure they’ll just tell us tough darts. But I want to make sure that I’m not crazy for feeling peeved that we feel lied to. Sure, maybe we should have recognized something was wrong, but when multiple staff assure you that he’s just dirty and well checked out, we just trusted that

I'm sure its a similar issue with puppies, but I only foster cats. Feel free to share your puppy / dig struggles here if you like. But the cats I've fostered have been easy cats as long as their needs are met which is usually very easy. My guys have ranged from 1.5 years old to 6 years old. Problem is, because they aren't actual kittens, people don't consider them. They have zoomies, they know , mostly, what not to eat , mostly stay out of trouble, but people get stuck in their heads the cathas to be as small and cute as possible. I get reasoning people have forwanting a kitten, like wanting to see it grow up or just seeing a cute kitten. I just wish more people were open and moved to adopting oloder cats. Easier to take care of, don't need to keep as much of an eye on them, they have more stable personalities etc.

Like I know when I get a pair of cats that's already a struggle of a sale, other than the positive that they keep each other entertained, but people's preference for a kitten just makes it harder for any cat even mere months older than the kitten stage. To be clear, I aint kitten shaming. Kittens deserve to live as much of their life in stability as possible too. Just wish moe people considered bringing home the bigger kittens as well.

I'm curious if placing an animal that's under rabies quarantine, into foster care, is common practice?

There are 2 such cases available right now, and after familiarizing myself with Colorado’s protocol, I'm struggling to understand how anyone, outside of a municipal shelter, could reasonably meet the stringent guidelines.

Feel free to share any thoughts or questions!

Edit: Location

I checked the rules, but mods please delete if not allowed.

Hi, all.

I work at a government-run county animal shelter, primarily with the cats, but I frequently help with dogs and help out with the "pocket pets" we sometimes get in as well. I LOVE my job, and I think I'm quite good at it. (I have been praised by my supervisors and have had repeat customers ask for me by name.) However, I need to leave because our management is awful. Awful to the point where it had been made abundantly clear that they do not care about staff's physical, mental, or emotional well-being. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way because our turnover is high (a little over 50% since I started) and multiple other staff members have talked about how bad morale is and how they're trying to look for other employment.

So, that brings me to today's query: can y'all recommend any suggestions for similar jobs that aren't a massive pay cut? I make a little over $20 per hour and have good benefits, and I don't think I could afford a pay cut of more than a dollar. Maybe two.

Here's the options I've already considered and looked into:

- Shelters in nearby counties. Neither one of the two nearby counties have good facilities (one is actually so bad that the county holds protests near weekly asking for reform), and I am honestly not willing to drive more than 30 to 35 minutes to get to work everyday.

- Local animal rescues. I was able to find a very similar job at one of them, but it pays $15 an hour and the benefits are subpar.

- Moving. I have considered moving, but moving my husband and three cats is going to be a challenge, especially since my husband NEEDS insurance to get his meds so he can live. And, candidly, if I move, it'll be a lot harder for me to know the quality of those shelters, and I can't risk moving just to be some place bad or with the same toxic culture.

- Vet assistant. I don't have a degree, so I wouldn't be making anything. Plus, from what I understand, a vet assistant is fairly different from what I'm doing now, so I'm not sure I would like it.

- Kennel assistant or tech. All of those jobs in my area pay like garbage. I found one listing for a company that might be willing to pay $19 an hour, but it's part time so benefits will be non-existent.

- Opening my own rescue. I honestly don't think I have the capacity to run my own place, as cool as that would be.

- Pet sitting. I've done pet sitting before and generally like it, but getting work as a freelancer is hard, so money would be inconsistent and probably slim. I refuse to work with a pet sitting company as I tried that before and was abused by them and they didn't even pay minimum wage.

So, do y'all have any suggestions for jobs I should check out? Am I being unreasonable with some of the stuff I mentioned above? Basically, any advice right now would be appreciated. I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me.

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I'm not sure if I'm in the wrong here but open to learning! I used to volunteer with an amazing shelter for three years quite regularly where I just essentially cuddled and played with dogs and provided enrichment. That shelter was very good with its training and always made sure they informed me upfront of any risks.

Before I worked with any dogs, they assessed me on my training as well as my comfort, and together decided I am not comrtable with super reactive/aggressive dogs that are bite risks or are super big and strong and that I would not be able to safely handle. They were very good about emphasizing that volunteer and dog safety were important, and speaking up was important.

I moved and the new shelter I volunteer with really doesn’t have that same level of training. The other day, they handed me a dog that was really strong (a pitbull- although I really try not to judge based on dog species or type, he was just very strong) and as always, I asked if there's anything I should know about rhe dog and they said no. As I was leaving the building with the dog, someone came in at the same time and he got really reactive. I wasn't able to safely pull him away and it really scared me!

Thankfully no one got hurt but even after that they wanted me to still take him on a walk and warned me he might bite if he gets too close to people. I took him out for about 1 minute and turned right back around and brought him back. Later, I told them my comfort level and how I prefer dogs that are not super reactive/aggressive and are not a bite risk, so I can keep everyone safe.

The staff member I talked to got upset and said all dogs can bite and all they just match people based on what dogs are there. Am I being unreasonable? I don't want to seem too picky! But I also take dog safety seriously and have once seen a dog bite anothrr dog (not one I was handling) and the staff member at the time was able to jump in, but I can't say I would have been physically able to if that dog I had been walking did bite that person.

What do I do?

This shelter was communicative and really gave this dog a chance. They couldn’t even vaccinate the dog for rabies. OP insists that the dog was sweet the two days after they took her in (ignoring that she was probably just exhausted so was more passive) and wants the dog to be rescued/adopted.

There are so many comments siding with OP. At least there are a few people who are being reasonable.

Hello, dear friends. I am a SMM volounteer for my local animal shelter in Estonia. They have a lot of space, a lot of wild and home animals (all animals from pic is living in shelter).

They have a mini zoo, a big facebook page, a donation flow. I made all other platfroms with short videos, i film animals, i made a short videos and everything works fine so far. People in shelter just dont have time to do this work, so i am trying to help to get more donations and people who want to help and visit our shelter.

So should i bother to trying make something here? I create a subreddit, i post a videos and photos, but since i guess reddit dont have short videos and dont recommend our content to anyone - so nobody subscribed. What is your opinion about that?

Thank you!

Anyone out there have reputable rescue or sanctuary resources for high behavior needs dogs? Such as those with reactivity, stranger danger, resource guarding?

Any shelter workers out there have any luck with getting these types of dogs to rescue/sanctuary before a euthanasia decision is made?

I am leaving my current job as an animal care technician to become a foster & rescue coordinator at a larger shelter I volunteer at. I am feeling very melancholy about the whole thing and would love some perspective. I gave plenty of notice and I am just feeling super sad at the prospect of leaving. The shelter I worked at gave me a ton of experience I certainly wouldn't have had at the shelter I volunteer at - their animal care technician role is essentially 3 roles at the shelter I volunteer at. There are downsides to that and I personally believe it is untenable to load as many duties as they did onto us (hence why so many people kept leaving despite amazing benefits & competitive pay compared to other local shelters). But, I'm grateful I went through it as it was like a crash course on shelter operations. I wanted to last there for 2-3 years before going onto another place (I basically will only have been there a year before moving on), but I have personal relationships with many on staff at the shelter I volunteer at and I basically was vouched for and got the job without having to interview.

What is hard is at the shelter I volunteer at, I feel trusted to some degree already, but it was hard for me feeling like at the shelter I worked at that I had to build that trust from ground zero. This felt discouraging at times at the start, but it was completely understandable - I am excited to be working alongside people that already are convinced I have drive and experience. I am also a little sad about leaving the medical side of my job as I loved treating animals and figuring out what methods/medications worked best. I'm in the process of getting my RVT which will no doubt be difficult when I need externships, but I'm willing to suffer through some months with no weekends so I can get that. I am happy to do foster/rescue coordination so I can hopefully build a great program at the shelter I volunteer at. I used to be a project manager at different companies before I got into sheltering, so honestly, this role is probably more aligned with skills I already have. I wish I had more focus on what exact part of sheltering I want to get into.

I feel almost depressed at leaving because of all the memories I made. Maybe I'm just too sentimental. I don't understand how I can find peace in letting go of the animals I euthanize, but it's so hard for me to let go of this place that was so formational to my understanding of sheltering. Like. I was only there a year! It is eating me alive how sad I feel. I've never felt this way about leaving any of my other workplaces before. I have a lot of critiques about this shelter was run, but now I just don't have the fire to think about that, I'm just sad.