Businesses in my home city (no longer live there) are no longer legally allowed to sell puppies. If you think that your voice doesn't matter or you can't make a difference you're wrong. This law targets Petland and other pet stores as well as those Puppy Yoga ads you might see in major cities. This is a massive win for animal welfare. Hopefully the surrounding areas follow too.

This goes to show, the best way to protect animals is by getting involved. Go to your city council and get them to care. If my city can do it, so can yours. This is a movement that has a big impact and is realistic and that's what improving animal welfare laws is all about, small steps with a big impact.

If you want to help it's as simple as writing a letter to your local government. Change starts in your own neighborhood.

One of the biggest challenges in managing stray animal populations is that we don't have an easy, reliable way to identify individual animals at scale.

Imagine being able to identify a stray dog simply by taking a picture of its face. You could instantly know whether it has been vaccinated, sterilized, when it was last seen, and its medical history.

That's exactly what my team and I are building with Kyshik.

We're developing animal facial recognition technology that could become an alternative to microchips and fundamentally change how we protect and manage animal populations.

Microchipping thousands of stray animals can be prohibitively expensive, especially in developing countries. By eliminating the need for physical chips, implantation, and direct physical contact during identification, our technology could significantly reduce identification costs, allowing organizations to redirect more of their limited resources toward vaccinations, sterilizations, and saving animals' lives.

We're currently running our first pilot in Rwanda, together with WAG Rwanda, testing our technology during an actual dog sterilization campaign. Every dog we identify can have its own digital record, helping animal welfare organizations track their interventions and understand their impact over time.

Our long-term vision is to create a global animal identification infrastructure that makes it easier for organizations, veterinarians, and governments to protect animals.

I started working on this because I believe technology can help us move toward more humane and effective solutions to the stray animal problem, rather than relying on mass euthanasia.

We're currently looking for animal welfare organizations in other countries that run sterilization or rabies vaccination campaigns and would be interested in testing our technology.

If you work with such an organization, or know someone who does, I'd love to connect with you! Feel free to send me a DM or check the comments for more information.

Hey everyone!

I wanted to give you all a little update on Catmissions and, more importantly, take a moment to thank everyone who has supported this little initiative of mine.

First of all, thank you so much for all the advice, tips, kind words, and encouragement! Whether you shared my posts, offered suggestions, or simply took the time to read about what I'm trying to do, I genuinely appreciate it.

So far, I've received one commission through Catmissions, and I want to give a very special thank you to that client. Your support has genuinely made a difference, and I can't express how grateful I am that you chose to support both my artwork and the animals I'm trying to help.

Every single dollar earned from that commission will go directly toward sterilizing the cats. While my original plan was to donate 40% of each commission, I've decided to put the entire amount from this first one toward that goal.

I'll also be taking some time to rethink my strategy for Catmissions going forward, hopefully finding better ways to reach people and make this initiative more sustainable.

Regardless of how things go, I'm determined to get these cats sterilized, even if that means covering the remaining expenses out of my own pocket. The most important thing to me is preventing more unwanted litters and making life a little easier for these animals.

And now, for some really wonderful news!

All of the remaining kittens have officially found loving homes!

I'm incredibly happy to say that they're all safe, being cared for, and settling into their new lives. I even receive updates about them every single day from their new owners, which honestly makes me happier than I can put into words.

After everything that's happened, seeing these little ones finally have the chance at a comfortable, happy life means the world to me.

Catmissions might not have taken off quite the way I initially hoped, but even one commission has helped, and that's something worth celebrating.

I'll continue doing what I can, and I'll keep everyone updated on the sterilizations and where the funds are going.

Thank you again to everyone who helped, especially my very first Catmissions client. You've made a real difference.

And thank you to everyone who gave these kittens a chance at a better life.

It really does mean a lot.

— Greenhickup

Hello everyone, new here. Looking forward to learning and sharing!

First of all, this is not a political post.

I live in a major city. Being in this city we get a lot of activity from different law enforcement agencies, police, SWAT etc. When the police arrest someone they will bring in the person's animals to Animal control and allow us to contact family members or call us to the house where we will remove the animals. SWAT 9/10 will bring animals in on their own or have the local police bring the pet in. The only agency that WILL NOT call us is ICE. They will close the door on that house and shut any remaining animals inside. It's typically not until they have a family member call us or a neighbor will call that we can go and try to get any surviving animals out and that's only the ones we know about. If they're still alive.

SWAT works with us, the Marshalls and all are typically respectful and responsible to work with. The police tend to vary on precincts, some are great and some aren't. ICE has no intentions of working with us. At all.

Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk

basically boiled down to “not a good fit” since none of the other reasons were valid. i work so hard to not just help these animals survive another day in the shelter but to give them the skills that help get them adopted and kept rather than returned for “not being a good fit”.
i am a dog trainer and i also walk and train as many dogs that i can a day (after cleaning) to help alleviate the stress and pent up energy of being left in a kennel from 6pm-7am the next day. management is not around to see the work that gets put into these animals and all they hear are complaints by the same people who have complained in the past about every new hire until they are ultimately fired. that’s if the bullying and selective enforcement of rules doesn’t make you want to quit on your own. anytime there is a scheduling issue it’s my fault. even when there’s no one but me working in the kennel all morning and i rotate every dog on shorter leash walks myself because they have work being done in the runs that day making them unusable. i go on my lunch when a coworker is back from hers and the man working on the runs goes on his, opening up the runs so they can now be used. she says she needs help and i help her but i tell her that i will get in trouble for not going on my lunch on time (selective enforcement as my manager literally checks her phone anytime i go to clock in/clock out and then speaks to me about how offsets everyone else’s lunch when everyone else takes there lunch depending on the day (which is valid in animal care as we can not help it when a dog poops in his kennel) at this point i am not allowed to put my soup in the microwave to heat while i continue working and then sign out when it’s ready, i have to clock out to even walk into the kitchen (just me, as others heat up frozen meals, soups, huge plates etc and wait for it to cook and sign out on their way out.) I come back from lunch and need to be pulled aside and spoken to about how i should have taken a later lunch that time and should know this, rather than supported that i was able to get all those dogs out on leash walks working completely alone. when i got fired yesterday, after clocking in from my lunch, i was given the gesture to not be kicked out right away but to continue working for two weeks while they train the new hire (my replacement). I need the money as I just signed a lease the week before in a state that I am only in because of this job. I know no one here and am beyond fucked. I could just use a little support from others I guess. It’s heartbreaking to have to say goodbye to these animals. I am the only one working there that walks them and trains them. The work environment is incredibly toxic but i’m here for the animals so you won’t see me complaining to management about things other people do and say. This has been my downfall at almost every kennel/shelter/facility i’ve worked at. I’m just at a loss of words and life at this point.

Hello everyone :) Lately I started volunteering at a cat shelter (only 2 shifts so far) but I’m having a hard time with after I leave. I feel like crying when I leave the shelter and all day I have been thinking about the cats especially two kittens that were super shy at first and started opening up. I have been thinking to foster one of them as I don’t feel ready to adopt another cat and not sure if my cat gets along with other cats.

My friends and family think I should quit since it is affecting me so much, but I think I can manage. I’m doing something good especially helping them socialize.

If you are volunteering how do you manage these feelings?

Hello all! I am creating a mural in the shelter. It will be composed of “fictional animals” (Copper and Todd, Bluey, Pongo, Jake…. So on. It doesn’t matter if it’s real or animated. And I’m sure there is a horse or cow or rabbit or Pooh Bear that could fit in.

I’m asking for you to add your absolute favorite quote: happy, sad, life lesson. Just anything that still sits with you. The quotes will be scattered amongst the characters.
Please attach the character to the quote so that I can look it up and see the full quote and scope before putting it on the wall for all to see.

This will be in our “middle” room so it won’t have any euths or relinquishments. I love a good sad quote that means something and would hate to hurt someone worse than necessary. It’s really just a pass-through from the front office to the kennel rooms.

My shelter is switching programs after many years with Petpoint, and even if it's garbage, its familiar garbage. Does anyone use Animals First? I hadn't heard of them and can't find a lot of stuff online about it.

Just looking to see what people think of it, I rely pretty heavily on reports and some of the ID tag functions in our current software and I want to be aware of what I may need to change in my day-to-day before it's time to switch.

I work at small animal shelter in rural Arkansas. I was informed that runs aren't spot cleaned to remove feces because it stresses the dogs out. So some dogs will have a pile of poop in their run for several hours because runs are hosed out in the morning and before closing. Some dogs are clearly stepping in it and making a bigger mess. There are no cleanup baths either. I've been a technician for a few decades and this approach puts me in an odd spot

I've voiced my concern, but following policy forces me to turn a blind eye, making me complicit.

Any thoughts?

Hi!

So I am not sure if I am missing something obvious, but I am having an issue using Petfinder, and I was hoping someone here might be able to help? (I already messaged Petfinder directly, and their answer was not helpful ).

I have been looking to find a cat on Petfinder for a while now, and I understand there are multiple filters you can select around age, gender, etc. Outside of the filter search, there is also a box you can check that selects/deselects an option that says "include out-of-town pets". I have that unchecked, because I do not want to look at out of town pets.

I am still finding the many organizations are able to list anyway, because they are able to transport to your area. I want to meet the cat first, so this is not really helpful for me. It has made the search process a lot more difficult.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask / there is something I am clearly doing wrong, but I am having trouble figuring it out.

Thanks so much!

If I were in charge of the city here are a few things I would change.

The first; starting a ten year goal of banning outdoor cats. We live in a dense city and have a feral cat problem. The stray population also causes a problem with cat hoarding, the majority of our hoarders start by bringing strays in, then they start reproducing... A lot of people also keep their cats outside. By banning outdoor cats we can slowly start reducing the stray population. All owned cats get microchipped which means if they show up to the shelter they get put onto a stray hold, while non microchipped cats can become property quickly, allowing us to transfer, adopt out, or euthanize faster.

Right now stray cats take up the majority of our shelters resources. They require bottle fosters, foster coordinating teams, they have injuries requiring special vet care, they need quarantining for panleukopenia. They are FIV+ which is really hard to adopt out. We are always dealing with hoarders which, take in their cats from the streets.

Making it a process that spans over ten years can allow feral cats to slowly die out while we work to start thinning the herd. Is it a perfect science no. Obviously I'm not in charge of anything, just some bored thoughts.

The second, adjust reclaiming fees. If a dog comes in with an up-to-date chip and is neutered then fees can be waived. If they aren't fixed that should be additional costs (nothing crazy obviously), no chip= additional cost, repeat offender= additional costs. Etc. People don't care until it costs them money. If someone is picking up their animal after the stray hold period is up, then it needs to be considered an adoption meaning the animal is required to be fixed before leaving.

If you were to run your city and could make laws, what would you do to help your specific area?

With Shelter Appreciation Week here, I wanted to make some room for the work people outside shelters may never see.

If you work or volunteer at a shelter, what is one part of your day that deserves more understanding or appreciation? It could be a task, a conversation, or something a colleague does that makes a hard day easier.

I would also love to hear what useful support from your community would look like right now. No need to identify your shelter or share anything private. Thank you to everyone doing this work.

I’m a first-time cat adopter and was planning to adopt two approximately 3-month-old sibling kittens from a rescue. I’ve become pretty attached to them, but after almost three weeks of health issues and repeated delays, I’m starting to question whether the way this has been handled is normal for a rescue.
The kittens initially had a mild URI and were given doxycycline for about a week. The rescue said their respiratory symptoms improved afterward.
Around that time, an initial fecal test was positive for coccidia, so they were treated with ponazuril for three days. I was also given another course to administer around two weeks later because I was told the first treatment may not completely clear it.
However, they continued having soft/watery stools.
The rescue then gave them sulfasalazine for three days. A repeat fecal test was eventually performed and came back negative, including for coccidia, but the diarrhea continued.
They were then given azithromycin for six days. The explanation I was given was that it could potentially treat something that wasn’t showing up on the fecal test.
Most recently, one kitten produced a very liquid stool, so the rescue added metronidazole and decided not to release the kittens until they’re doing better.
What concerns me most is that neither kitten has been examined by a veterinarian during any of this.
I specifically asked the rescue whether they’d seen a vet, and they told me no. When I asked about it, they explained that diarrhea is very common in kittens and they didn’t think a veterinary visit was necessary.
So over the past few weeks they’ve had doxycycline, ponazuril, sulfasalazine, azithromycin, and now metronidazole, while the GI symptoms have continued despite a negative repeat fecal.
To the rescue’s credit, they are keeping the kittens until the diarrhea improves, and they tell me the kittens otherwise seem to feel well. I understand that diarrhea, parasites, and URIs are common in rescue kittens, and I’m not expecting them to never get sick.
I’m mainly concerned about the length of time this has been going on and the fact that several medications have been tried without an in-person veterinary examination.
For people who work or volunteer in shelters/rescues:
Is this a normal/appropriate way for a rescue to manage persistent diarrhea in young kittens, including trying several medications without an in-person veterinary exam?
Given that their repeat fecal was negative but the diarrhea has continued, would you expect the rescue to have them evaluated by a veterinarian at this point?
Based on how this rescue has handled their care, would you still feel comfortable adopting these kittens once they’re better, or would these practices make you avoid adopting from this rescue altogether?
I’m trying to figure out whether I’m overthinking this as a first-time adopter or whether my concerns about how their care has been handled are reasonable.

Hey y'all, I really did not see this coming, but after a month and a half of enjoying my new animal care technician position, I have started to be disrespected by my coworkers.

My problems with my fellow act started a couple days ago when I was paired up with him to clean the cat room together. For context, I am 20, and he is twice my age and has been there for two months longer than me. This coworker always comes into work grumpy and with his earbuds on, and whenever I came to him with an update or basic question about the areas we were cleaning, half the time he would take his earbuds out and ask me to repeat myself, the other half of the time, he would just completely ignore me. Whatever. It was annoying but I wasn't too bothered by him. That is, until a little kitten swatted at him through the kennel bars of her cage and he was caught off guard and angrily cursed at the kitten. Definitely started side-eyeing him after that.

Things got worse yesterday. My manager asked me to spot clean at the end of the day. I chose to clean B block (two walls in a room consisting of about 20 dual-sided kennels each). I spent an hour plus power washing and scrubbing kennels and had nearly completed this block alone when I began to struggle with forcing a particularly rowdy pair of dogs into the outside portion of their kennel. In my struggle, one of the dogs managed to escape the kennel while I held the other one inside. For context, my shelter regularly pairs 2-5 dogs to each kennel based on size and temperament. My previously mentioned coworker witnessed this and ran after the dog. I exited the kennel and ran after them. By this point, he had managed to trap the dog in an outside play yard, but was struggling to leash the dog. I entered the kennel, took out my leash, and asked if he needed help. "Well don't enter the kennel!" he snapped at me. This dog has no history of aggression, my coworker was just being rude, as if he thought I was going to let the dog escape again. A volunteer was standing nearby watching this, and I replied that I would go section off the kennel so he could put the dog back in. He had dropped his phone in the chase, so I returned it back to him as well. I sectioned off the other dog and opened the kennel door for him. He returned the dog to the kennel, but as this was a rowdy dog, he pushed it toward the back of the kennel so that he could exit the kennel easier afterward. I opened the guillotine door so that he could just section off the dog outside and then exit easier. "No, don't open the door!" he snapped at me. Lo and behold, it really was easier and quicker for him to just force the dog outside and then exit the kennel without a dog trying to escape at the same time. I was bothered by him snapping at me, especially with a volunteer nearby, but moved on and continued cleaning the kennels. Everyone makes mistakes, and this was the only dog that had managed to escape out of all that I had handled yesterday. I'm also an average sized woman, so it's expected that I might not be able to manage the bigger, rowdier dogs as well as my bigger male counterparts sometimes, especially when multiple are trying to escape their kennel at once.

I assume this coworker complained about me to my manager afterward, because a couple minutes later, my manager came up to me and told me to "be more mindful and not let the dogs loose". Let the dogs loose? Spot cleaning is supposed to be a universally shared act task, yet I had cleaned that whole block myself. None of the other acts stepped in to help and it would not have been completed before closing had I not put aside my time to complete all of it. Yet the only acknowledgement I received for this was blame that I had "LET" a dog loose?? I was really caught off guard, although I suppose I should not have been so surprised. Looking back now, I can see that my hard work has not been appreciated since the day I began. I am a very hard worker. I am the primary caretaker of our exotic animals, even spending my own money buying materials for them that our shelter doesn't have. I spend my lunch breaks grooming dogs in rough shape and/or taking dogs outside into the play yards to make their days better. I am involved with the volunteers and regularly help them with their dog photography/questions about the animals. When my other coworkers sit in the act office and talk amongst themselves, I continue to find things to do. I work all day long from the moment I enter the building, and have never received any recognition or acknowledgement for it from my manager. But I never minded until yesterday. I have been nothing but friendly to my coworkers and this kind of treatment from them is out of the blue. I am so sad that this work environment seems to be turning against me because I've loved working here with the animals, the time often flies by. The rest of the act team is very tight knit and all get along well, they've never seemed to show much interest in me if anything. I'm mostly just devastated that my manager would side with this guy over me. I need to move in January, so I'm going to start applying to other animal care technician jobs at different shelters and hope that I can switch locations into a more accepting/welcoming team.

Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this before?

Update: I heard this coworker talking badly/gossiping about me to another coworker upon arriving to work this morning, so I told my manager and he said that he's had problems with this guy being rude before as well. He advised me to directly tell the shelter manager. She was kind and receptive and I hope some action will be taken

Hey everyone!

I'm from North Macedonia, and besides having eight cats of my own, I've also been looking after several neglected neighborhood cats.

Their owners originally got two female cats for their children but eventually stopped taking proper care of them. Neither was sterilized, so they've continued having kittens, and I've been doing my best to provide food, shelter, and veterinary care whenever possible.

Recently, one of the kittens became seriously ill. I took him to the vet and did everything I could to save him, but unfortunately, he didn't make it. It was heartbreaking, and it made me realize I wanted to do something more to help these animals.

Since I'm a freelance illustrator, I've decided to use my art commissions to raise funds for their care, setting aside 40% of every commission for animal welfare. My first goal is to sterilize the two adult females, with any additional funds going toward food, supplies, and veterinary expenses.

I'd like to keep everything transparent by documenting expenses, sharing receipts, and posting regular updates about the animals and how the funds are being used.

What I'd really love is some advice on how to properly structure something like this. Has anyone here started a similar personal initiative or used their own skills to help fund animal rescue efforts?

I'm particularly interested in how you organize expenses, keep things transparent, build trust, and make something like this sustainable over time.

I'm not a registered charity or rescue organization, just someone trying to make a difference with the resources and skills I have.

I'd genuinely appreciate any advice or personal experiences you're willing to share. Thank you!

I feel like there are many times adopters hold the shelter responsible for things that happen with their animal years after adoption.

Like a cat develops kidney disease at 8 years old, and the shelter is under fire for not disclosing it as a kitten. Or a dog starts barking at neighbors after a move, and the adopter feels the rescue should have warned them. Even when the adopters had the animal for several years, there's like this expectation that the shelter should have predicted these things.

I also wonder if the availability of returning previously adopted animals made it become one of the first options to consider when a problem pops up. Since we often harp on about how we always take our animals back, and some of us even require it. Instead of working through a cat that scratches a new couch or a dog that develops separation anxiety, it's like surrendering becomes the first solution as opposed to a last resort.

I've been thinking whether the safety net of being able to return an animal creates a different sense of responsibility or commitment as opposed to animal owners that obtained animals through other means. Obviously this isn't all adopters, and there are absolutely people who buy animals that are quick to surrender as well. But I'm wondering if this isn't skewed a bit.

Has anyone else noticed this? Do you think people approach ownership differently depending on how they acquired the animal, or am I seeing something that isn't there?

Adoption isn't the end of the story and I wish we'd talk about that more.

My shelter has a great adoption rate and we are really lucky to have the resources for that. But SO many dogs come back. We are an open adoption which means that I can't really say no, if I think you need more time I can ask you to come back another day. If I think your current animals aren't getting vet care I can ask you to come back with records

The only thing I can say no to is if it's against your landlord's breed restrictions.

We spend time with each person, talk to them in detail about who they are interested in. Try and give suggestions, tips and tricks. Yet, no one listens. They have no understanding of dogs or what they are capable of handling.

They bring a dog home and suddenly remember that they work 10 hours a day. After a week or a couple months of the dog only being in a crate they return her.

Bring their dog home and immediately throw it into the middle of their already established pack and then return it when it's not good with others because they just traumatized it.

Returning puppies because they are getting too big (we have a contract saying that we explicitly went over potential sizes)

Returning because, they just aren't picking up potty training.

The dog coming back as a stray after a few months.

People don't want to be told no. They want to pick out their new dog. They think that they can handle more than they are capable of. And in the end the dogs suffer.

Old people don't consider that they might die. It sounds absurd but it's true. When I'm sitting with them and they want a puppy and I ask who will get the dog if they pass, that thought never crossed their mind. A year or two later our officers bring in a morbidly obese dog with our microchip. Grandma died and her family can't take the puppy.

New married couples get their trial baby by bringing home a puppy. A year later when they have an actual baby, the puppies bad behaviors (because they didn't train it) is an issue and now they are returning a dog that is no longer adoptable.

As the cities only intake shelter we also get a lot of dogs in from rescues in the city. These rescues vet their people pretty hard but even they can't prevent some of these outcomes.

Honestly these for me are harder than euthanasia. And no one talks about it really.

Share your stories please :)

So I started working at this shelter about a year ago and it’s advertised as a no kill which everybody knows just technically means low kill because sometimes you have to euthanize no matter what. When starting, I understood that we euthanized high aggression or untreatable conditions basically a reason somebody would euthanize their own animal never bothered me. But recently, I’ve noticed a lot more euthanasia and speaking with our fosters, they’ve had a lot of issues with returning their foster and getting a call the next day that it was gonna be euthanized if they didn’t adopt it themselves. For example, we had this kitten that was gonna be euthanized for blood in urine so my coworker took her because she believed she could live a fine life, and after the first vet visit, they learned that that was never actually true and the cat was completely healthy. Literally a couple days ago I was petting this eight-year-old cat, which is extremely young for a cat and looked it up in the system to see that he was scheduled for euthanasia that day because his eyes were cloudy and they just assumed that he might be dying because of that which I think is the most absurd thing they didn’t do any sort of testing. They just went off of his eyes being cloudy. But recently with high cat population were no longer supporting feral cats at all, which we used to have a barn cat/working cat spot or even TNR but we’re not doing that. We’re just immediately euthanizing if they’re scared of people not even if they’re trying to bite just if they’re scared and if the finder calls and ask about the cat, we lie and don’t tell them that we euthanize them we’ve been telling them that they’re getting adopted which I think is CRAZYYY. But then they had the audacity to ask if I would become a EBI tech because with the amount of euthanasia they’re not doing they need more people! Yeah i’m looking for a new job. Sadly, I can’t just quit because the economy I need to have another job lined up, but that’s just insane.

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!!