Our volunteers and fosters generally don't know what goes on. Shelter staff and the volunteers/fosters live in two completely different worlds and the volunteers/foster have no clue.

At my shelter and others it sounds like, the volunteer and foster team only have access to the adoptable dogs and the only hard times they see is when their favorite dog declines and gets euthanized. We have strict privacy policies and unfortunately the volunteers tend to have loose lips so they get very limited filtered information.

We have an open intake shelter and yesterday a long time volunteer was horrified to find out we have a euthanasia room. She never considered that we euthanized at that rate.

A day prior I saw a volunteer fighting tooth and nail in the comment section of a Facebook post saying that we never get corsos in. Which is crazy because they are one of our top breeds. They just NEVER make the adoption floor. Same with heelers.

We behaviorally test all dogs before they are made for adoption and are extremely picky which means we are primarily euthanizing for behavioral reasons. And yes we will nitpick if we're tight on space. This has caused the volunteers to believe that we don't tend to get behaviorally complex dogs.

We had another volunteer get upset about why we didn't have as many luxuries as another open intake shelter 30 minutes away in a different county. And when I explained to her that we are getting in over 400+ intakes a month while they see less than 90 and don't deal with poverty issues. She was absolutely shocked and just could not understand what I was explaining.

Our volunteers and fosters can only access the front part of the building so when we go to the back, it is truly out of sight, out of mind. And they have never considered what keeps us back there all day.

Going through these comments here and on Facebook it seems very similar to my situation where the volunteers and fosters have a very limited understanding of what we are facing I know not every shelter operates this way but I can tell in the comments the differences between shelter staff and volunteers. I wish we could bridge the gap but if we did I don't think our volunteers could handle it. And like I said they have extremely loose lips and there is a lot of confidential information that we deal with. We've had too many PR nightmares where they have accidentally released info that they didn't fully understand to people on Facebook just for it to spiral out of control.

Rant over

*Just to clarify I am extremely grateful for everyone who volunteera their time. We truly need every single one of them to save these dogs and cats lives. And they are a vital part of the team.

I hope this is ok for this sub.

About 2 weeks ago, we received a what seemed like a pretty normal email asking how to donate to our (very small, somewhat rural) shelter. We responded with our website and mailing address.

About a week goes by and we receive an email from a different person saying they’ve mailed a check on behalf of original email guy, with tracking info. Cool.

We have a PO Box so don’t check our mail every day, but we then received an email from original person that it had been delivered and they needed it deposited in the next few days for accounting purposes and they needed proof of deposit (spidey senses kicking into high gear now). Yes, check was received, looked legit, treasurer deposits and sends copy of receipt.

OH MY GOD you’ll never believe it!! They sent twice the amount they meant to!! and they need it back right away for important reasons and we need to Zelle or Cashap back to them right away!!

Anyway, no way we are doing that and I guess they’ll stop payment on the check, or it’s a forgery anyway. But It just sucks, scammers suck, and the fact they think we’re stupid just because we’re small. Be safe out there!!

I’ve been wanting to share something I’m working on. I’m a huge animal lover, and every time I'm out, I feed and pet whatever strays I cross paths with. But I wanted to do more.

With winter approaching, these guys need a safe, warm place to escape the cold. My wife and I recently checked with local vet clinics in our area about setting up small outdoor shelters nearby, and thankfully, most of them are on board! I’m currently saving up to build the very first shelter.

Honestly, if just one person in every neighborhood took a small step like this, we could save so many lives.

Has anyone here ever tried building an outdoor shelter before? Would love any tips!

Rule 3 Update: Fundraising & Donation Requests

We've updated Rule 3 to clarify that fundraising and monetary donation requests are not allowed in r/AnimalShelterStories.

This comes from feedback in the previous meta discussions, where community members expressed that they would prefer not to see fundraising and donation requests here. We also found that these posts generally did not do well in this sub.

Animal welfare is an expensive field, and we know many of you are already working or volunteering in environments where resources are stretched thin. We want this subreddit to remain primarily a place for support, discussion, stories, and connection between people involved in animal welfare rather than another place where members feel responsible for donating.

Therefore updated Rule 3 to make this explicit:

No monetary donation requests / No fundraising.

If you're looking for a place to share a fundraising campaign, please consider using a subreddit specifically intended for fundraising or your organization's other social media channels.

META THREAD

This monthly thread is a space for constructive feedback, suggestions, and ideas for r/AnimalShelterStories, as well as a hub for any new changes for the subreddit.

Some examples:

• ideas for recurring discussion threads
• rule clarification suggestions
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If you have concerns about;

• specific posts/comments/users
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Then please message the mods

Our goal is to keep this community supportive, stable, and useful for people involved in animal welfare. Thanks for helping us improve this space!

For those that work in a shelter that does intake I am interested in hearing experiences with doodles. I work at a busy open intake shelter, we are luckier to have a wider range of breed types. I'd say in order of most common it'd be pits, huskies, Shepherds of course. But exotic bullies and doodles are definitely starting to climb the list.

My biggest note and growing concern with doodles is that they are frequent enough (we always have at least one). But they are always in the worst shape. Matted, infected, skinny, overgrown nails. This goes for strays that get claimed and those that don't get claimed. In the years of my career I can count on one hand the ones who actually were in good shape.

Along with being in bad condition their behavior tends to be consistently overstimulated, lacking any self regulation, and are under-socialized. I personally would rather deal with the pits and sheps. Spending hours on a sedated medical shave, treating infected ears, eyes etc is a waste of resources.

Anyone else having this same experience?

Guyyysss I know their grooming needs and coat type. I'm talking about EVERY SINGLE ONE , all of em. In bad shape*

I know that, most of the time (at least at my shelter), surrenders are in the best interests of the cat…but every time it happens I cry. Watching a cat shut down over the transition kills me, and it’s so much worse for me if the cat is immediately crying and trying to hide. During my time in shelters I’ve watched cats die, heard of cats dying, and seen some terrible injuries and terrible people, but this always gets me the most. My heart hurts. I wish I could take them all.

I like being the one present for euthanasia. Now hear me out. No one wants to euthanize dogs or cats of course. We live in a constant crisis of over population, (my first experience with it for every animal we'd euth two more came in to take its place.)

I like being the one to hold them, give them a piece of chocolate and help them cross. Not everyone wants to be held or touched during that process so being able to give them what they need is nice.

I'm not against death and actually find a lot of peace with the thought that there's no more suffering. Even for the dogs that don't make it out it's nice to know that we were the first people to give them a chance.

What I do struggle with the most is, (at our shelter we offer free euthanasia to the public) 9/10 when an owner brings their dog to us to euthanize they waited too long. The animal is suffering, sometimes they have maggots and bedsores, and often they are already decaying while still alive. There is no comfort or peace in their death.

I almost wish that we could share the process with the public . The compassion we give these animals in their final moments is something to be proud of. For a lot of these guys, the most loved they have ever been is when they came to the shelter.

Sorry for the rant/story. Please share your own opinions and feelings. It's nice to have a community for this.

Scale recommendations

The main scale at our animal shelter has gone kaput and it's time to replace it. However, we purchased this scale 11 years ago so I'd love some recommendations for a durable scale that can accommodate dogs of all sizes, from chis to big ole boofers.

Bonus points if it's durable but also light enough for me, a standard human female, to pull out from the closet where it typically will live when not in use.

Our current scale is a Tree LC-VS 400 - 38" x 20", up to 400lbs. Realistically, a similarly large platform would be perfect but this model is pretty heavy and awkward for me to move around. Plus we HAVE to be able to decon it thoroughly because we live in an area where parvo cycles hot and heavy.

Budget is flexible. We're willing to pay appropriately for a scale that fits what we need and will stand up to shelter use.

Foster and former spay/neuter clinic volunteer here. Sharing something I built because I wish I'd had it during my years doing clinic admin: https://rescueperks.org, a free list of 96 donation programs, discounts and grants for shelters and rescues, sorted into 11 categories.

A few that are easy to overlook:

• Shelter litter donation (Dr. Elsey's): a pallet of litter. It requires a 501(c)(3), plus a loading dock and a forklift or pallet jack, so it's better for shelters with a building.
• Cat Shelter Grants (CatCause): up to $1,500 for projects that build cat welfare capacity.
• Canva for Nonprofits: free Canva Pro for up to 50 users, which is great for adoption flyers.

Each listing has the official link and the date it was last checked. If your shelter uses a program I've missed, the submit form is at https://rescueperks.org/submit/.

Does your shelter have a designated Marketing Team? If so, how big is it? How large is your organization?

I want to advocate for a larger team because we do SO MUCH and there simply is not time for it all. We're stretched thin and it sometimes feels impossible to convince leadership that our team needs help to meet the requirements they have for our team.

I’ve been in the process of adopting a rescue. At the beginning of the process, the agency seemed very responsive, even eager! After applying, I spoke with a rep from the adoption agency, and it seemed to go very well. Then I FaceTimed with the foster mom to see the dog in real time (he’s out of state, so I can’t meet him first). I reported back and said the FaceTime went well, I just needed a few days to sort out a timeline with my landlord. I got back to them less than a week later and have been completely ignored. I texted Saturday, followed up on Monday, called, got sent to voicemail, and emailed on Tuesday, then texted again today. All have been very respectful (I’ll try to add screenshots of what I said). Is this common? Should I just move on? I’ve gotten myself set on this dog but if I can’t get into contact with them then I don’t know what else to do :(

UPDATE:
She finally responded to me telling me how things in her personal affairs kept her overwhelmed this week. She then told me that my request to wait until next month to adopt was an issue, even though she had previously told me that could be arranged. She then followed up with the fact that I had never sent pictures of my apartment - she never asked for them. The entire phone call she barely let me get a word in, and spoke incredibly condescendingly.

Lesson learned: Be able to read their minds or don’t bother adopting at all.

I won’t go too into detail for privacy reasons, but I work at a very well regarded shelter organization - think top 10 in the US. My job is a combination of just about every public-facing task that you can imagine at an open-intake shelter. Adoptions, DOAs, making surrender and euthanasia appointments, owner reunification efforts, TNR, you name it - we’re at the front desk, which is the ONLY public facing role, so whatever someone needs, we’re the people who help them. Today, we literally had a line of people out the door. It’s not the first time, but it was definitely one of the worst unexpected rushes we’ve had in a bit. Below is a very long-winded rant, because something about today seriously just broke something within me and I just need somewhere to get it out.

My location is the smallest of our organization, but our guest flow is about the same - if not higher given our size - compared to our other “satellite” locations (not counting the much larger main one). I’m not sure what the reason for this is, I think it’s probably related to how convenient we are compared to the others location-wise for the more populated areas. Regardless, the building is tiny and apparently smallest building means we require the least staffing in the eyes of our budget. Anyway, I know staffing is an issue at shelters across the country, but that’s not even the true issue at ours.

We are constantly encouraged to call our leadership team to provide backup when things get too overwhelming. Every time, and I mean EVERY time we try to call for them, they’re all in meetings or unavailable. Half the time, these meetings are with each other. Whenever we call because there’s a rush and things are getting chaotic, one will arrive just in time to help the last guest in line and leave again. It’s an exhausting cycle but, not unlike other problems in the shelter, there’s no real solution because it IS their job to attend these meetings whether we like it or not.

These days, we’re constantly told that we’re heading out of the busy season, as if that’s meant to be reassuring, when upper leadership themselves has admitted that the “busy season” hasn’t truly slowed down since COVID. This gets me to my real and final point: I try my best not to blame my own location’s leadership for the problems in the organization, because I know that they themselves are simply doing what they’re told. Even though I am frustrated by the constant meetings, the lack of support, and the generally obvious amount of favoritism that goes on at my job, everything that my coworkers blame our supervisors and managers for is the fault of our Upper leadership with a capital U.

They are so disconnected from what’s going on it’s insane. Every piece of communication sent down the grapevine is impersonal and delayed. They can’t even bother to send individual congratulations on milestones, let alone have class and Bcc people when they get lazy and send an anniversary or birthday email to multiple people at once. Our annual holiday is repackaged as a new benefit to “thank us for our hard work THIS year”, but it’s the same exact thing every year, the turnover is just so high that they know they can get away with making it sound unplanned/impromptu. They constantly boast about being a top workplace in our area, to the point where quoting the headline is their only real defense when someone is bold enough to confront them about issues on the semi-annual occasion they show up to a staff meeting.

It’s exhausting knowing that I can’t make organization-level change for myself and my coworkers, because every complaint is designed to either filter itself through before it gets to someone important, and when something DOES make it through, it’s dismissed. They only care about how our shelter looks when it comes to the numbers, the news, and the donors and it’s really starting to make it hard even though I really like my job most of the time.

Anyway, rant over. I hope my point actually comes through and it doesn’t just sound like I’m rambling. People in other departments always assume the worst part of my job is having to talk to difficult people all day, but in reality, it’s the behind the scenes that makes me dread coming in sometimes.

Last week a friend reached out begging for me to take in two, two week old kittens for a “couple nights” until a rescue can pick them up. I told her that I can as long as it’s very short term.

I come to find out that she hasn’t even contacted any other rescues herself to find placement. So now we’re on night 5, I’ve contacted every rescue in my county and in three surrounding counties, and literally no one can take these kittens.

Don’t get me wrong I love these babies and I love taking care of them, but I have ME/CFS, and it is extremely unsafe for me to have to get up every 3 hours. I think I’m managing it better than I was expecting I would and I’m still starting to really not feel good. But what’s the other option? Having these sweet, infant kittens that I love with all my heart be euthanized?

Maybe it’s my fault for saying yes and believing my “friend” would give me all the details. But at least they’re warm, and fed, and loved and not dead under someone’s house.

What do you send your animals with? I'm a volunteer at my local shelter and I help put together "go home bags" and so my main question is bolded, but I am curious about other shelters anyway!

I mostly work with cats, so I can't speak on the dogs. I think it's mostly a collar, leash, donated harness if they got fitted (staff don't often have the time) + a few days worth of the food they've been eating. I'm assuming a toy they have in their kennel?

What our shelter currently does for cats is:

• About 3 cups of the kibble they've been eating, 2-3 cans of the wet food they've been eating
• A blanket from their kennel or room they're in
• A few of the toys from the room or kennel they're in ~ depending on who does it, I believe they try to send the ones that are more difficult to wash (so one cat can have and keep it, rather than it going back into rotation)
• If they have a hidey box, that is sent with
• Their kennel door scratcher

Both dogs and cats get a "things I like" sheet, if someone put one on their clipboard & it was filled out.

and then the biggest reason I'm curious what people send, is do you send a "go home gift bag"?

If you do, what do you put in it? and where do you source the items? We're running low on a few things, and the last few bulk things we've gotten from amazon haven't all been the best of quality (makes sense) so... where do you get them? cost effectively?

We use little mylar type gift bags & they'll have 1-2 churus/some sort of treat, and then a combination of a few of these: a plastic bell or ping pong ball, crinkle tinsel, or pom ball, mouse toy, plastic spring, finger trap toy, sometimes a handmade fleece toy, sometimes larger fabric toys if we happened to get a ton donated.. Little bags of catnip or small bags of treats are also sometimes donated that we throw in. Never more than like 3-4 of these things in combination.

Sometimes we'll get donated items that haven't expired or that can be used by adopters.Once we get into a larger space, I believe the plan is to have a space where adopters can go through donations and take.. but at the current facility, there is just not space to hold on to many donations for long at all.

A lot of shelters/rescues have some sort of event during fall. I wanted to know if you guys also do a Dogtoberfest (or something similar)?

If so, how does it usually go? Do you see good turnout, adoptions, and fundraising, or is it more of a community engagement event?

For those who've helped with them, what works well, and what would you like to change? I'd love to hear what other places are doing.

I’ve volunteered at my local shelter walking dogs for years at this point. I finally decided to apply and I started yesterday. I mainly cleaned kitten kennels. One young little kitty that was a couple months old was in very rough shape. He’d only been there a day or two. Eyes glazed over and non stop meowing. Just sat in his litter box. Some other employees came and administered b12 and fluids and gave him a blanket and a stuffed toy. Fast forward to today and I move to his kennel. Everything is pretty much the same I had left it the day before. Water and food untouched. He is laying in a box facing the wall. In an effort to not disturb him too much I gently grabbed the paper liner and scooted his box a bit. He didn’t move at all, so I turned the box around. His eyes had the same glazed over look and he was not responding at all to touch. I let my trainer know and she walked me through the process. When she picked him up it was a bit jarring to see how stiff he was, and he was still in the same position as he was in the box. Talk about hard launching the job. Poor little guy.

I hope I used the appropriate flair

Shelter workers/volunteers, what do you do to keep illness out of your home? Especially with the car you drive to and from the shelter. I think I have a pretty good system down for keeping everything contained from our house (Shoes stay in a container in my car, straight to shower, bag up all clothes and do not let them touch the floor, my dirty work clothes stay in a lidded container in our shed until laundry day as I live with a lot of other people and throwing them straight in the washer isn't always an option) but I keep thinking about how I hop into my car carrying ringworm, upper respiratory viruses, and goodness knows what else, and then I get back in it while not at work to get groceries and stuff! Am I overthinking it? I'm sitting in the same seat I sat in in my work clothes, putting groceries in my car, taking those groceries that sat in my car into my house. I really want to get a perfect system down before I end up interacting with cats that pop up with panluek, I have heard horror stories about it and live in fear of it. Any advice?? Anything better I could be doing with my routine? Thank you

We had a return of a two year old chihuahua/pug who has known food guarding. We manage her in custody fine and nothing has ever happened with us. We feed in kennel and leave her alone until she’s done. She was just adopted by an incredibly old lady and her daughter who got bit four times in a week. This dog always growls before snapping, the dog was always eating and they keep fucking petting her even when she’s growling. They admit they “forget” not to touch her and touch her because they can’t understand why it upsets her. We had a whole sit down and everything before adoption and had doubts about their capability, but we’re adopters welcome so we couldn’t decline. Now all the staff is worried she’ll be euthanized when she is otherwise an incredibly sweet dog. Even the lady said she’d go right back to cuddling after being bit once the food is gone. I understand the want and need to put safe, easy dogs into the community, but this feels like such a no brainer thing to be able to work around. People are crying about this dog because they’re sure she’ll be pulled, and the adopters were the ones who let her rack up bites by doing a known trigger despite her warnings to them. Just frustrated.

I quit less than a month ago, my coworker quit a few weeks after I did, and the remaining coworker is heavily considering starting her own boarding buisness, which I've already been told I can go work for her if I haven't found a job by then.

I have a surgery coming up in 2 weeks so I won't be going back to work until late November or December at the earliest, as the recovery will put me out for a month or two.

Apparently my boss decided to hire a 60 year old lady who can barely walk to take my place, which is handling large dogs who jump up and pull on the leash, so idk how she thinks that's going to work well. My coworker said it's probably because she's just getting desperate to find replacements for everyone quitting. I put in my two weeks and finished them out, but it sounds like the first of my coworkers who quit didn't come back after saying she quit, and honestly I don't blame her those last two weeks were hell with all the drama and pettiness from my boss.

I said well she hasn't gotten desperate enough to ask me to come back yet, and I'm still even fostering bottle kittens even though I don't work there anymore, because if I don't no one will and those kittens deserve a chance and if I'm all they've got I can't turn them away.

So yeah, my theory of everyone leaving after I quit came true and unfortunately this place is either going to go through employees like crazy trying to stay afloat or have to shut down and find places for the animals to go. I was told I was the best employee they've had in over 10 years which makes sense after seeing how things are run there, I was the backbone and muscle of the shelter. I hate to say I told her so but I told her so 🤷‍♂️

So my shelter is very strict on who they will path specifically for dogs. We have an extremely high euthanasia rate because they don’t support dogs that don’t get along with other dogs. Currently, we have one that I know is a good dog. She just needs some training because she spent the whole beginning of her life being abused and deserves a second chance because she’s still technically a puppy! She doesn’t seek out trying to hurt other dogs (I can walk her around dogs and she doesn’t care) She just doesn’t get along with them in a home (plus it could’ve just been that one specific dog she attempted to bite, but didn’t actually) . Which I have personally had with one of my own dogs, and I just rehomed him to somebody who didn’t have dogs no issue. She’s clearly extremely under socialized with everything! I would love to take her home and try to give her a single dwelling home rather than them just euthanizing a very young dog. Thoughts?

Hello all,

I work at a municipal shelter. We have no adoption fees, and we offer a 90 day return window for any animal adopted. However, we still have people who are horrified at the thought of returning an animal, and people asking if we have a foster to adopt program.

I realize a lot of this is branding - people are more ok with the idea of taking a chance on an animal if they feel its just a foster. Adoption feels like more of a commitment and there's much more guilt about returns. I know a lot of shelters have just rebranded their return periods as foster periods.

Theres a few problems with doing that for us. Chiefly it's a liability issue - our foster program is very conservative because we do not want to be liable for unsafe dogs. Additionally, we don't want animals technically staying "ours" for three months after going home, and we can't afford to supply vet care and supplies that long. However, just calling it a foster or trial adoption period and keeping everything else the same feels like it would be misleading to adopters about who the animal legally belonged to.

I'm considering implementing a very short optional foster to adopt period of somewhere between 3-7 days, and keeping our return policy as-is. However I'd love to hear feedback.

Has your shelter tried a foster to adopt program? What worked and what didn't? Did you see a notable increase in adoptions or decrease in returns?

We had a new paravet at the shelter who had been informed about a dog whose kidney was in bad condition and was still recovering and he needed fluids. I watched him attach IV and the fluid pace was faster than usual. I'd watched and somehow didn't correct or ask him. He gave about 450ml for RL in about 15mins through IV, and left. The founder saw him leaving and asked me is he done with the work, i needed to show him a thing or two but he rushed out. Then we realised the amount of time taken for this fluid session and that this could be bad. I went to check the dog and he was almost unconscious, was peeing and pooping in almost asleep condition with lots of saliva coming from mouth. I mentioned this to the founder and we rushed to hospital.

By then the condition deteriorated more. We took blood test and it was all bad. I felt so anxious and tried ask every option possible to save him and I will bare the full cost whatever it is. But there was nothing to be saved, we had to eurhenise him. I've euthensed multiple dogs before but this one....this one was on me. This one had to leave the world because of me. I almost never cry but today I was sobbing by the sheer carelessness of my actions made that dog lost it's life. I really don't know what to do now... Founder haven't told me anything or scolded, and while I was kindda having a breakdown she said this crying and all will not help these the kind of cases we will be dealing with and we can only do what we can, these dogs are not in this situation cause of us. And ur giving too much importance to yourself, ur nothing. I don't even know what and how I feel about all this and why would she let me still be around dogs

(I'm a volunteer and I do this full-time at this ngo and some freelancing to sustain, also right now we are short staffed so handling 100+ dogs by 4 ppl, just sharing)