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

Long story short: I was negligent and opened a window in my bedroom at night. My cat jumped out and was not seen in two weeks.

Long story full: A month ago, I adopted a shelter cat, past feral/stray, with FIV, and was made to sign documents saying he was an escape risk and I had to secure windows and doors. Somehow I decided it didn't apply to my bedroom window "since it was so high up and I'm sleeping in the room" and my sinuses were a little dry and yeah... My cat has been gone for two weeks with not a single sighting. I gave 250+ flyers out in mailboxes, warned vets in the area, warned the city, put fliers in stores / at bus stops. Put up wildlife photo traps. Nothing except martens and hedgehogs. Have a humane trap at the escape point.

Now: as far as I'm concerned, until proof of death, I still have a cat. He is just lost. I am not looking for a replacement. I am STILL looking for my cat. If I adopt another and Cacao returns, I will have two cats.

My first urge (while crying myself to sleep) was however to donate all his gear to the closest shelter (two cat trees, multiple scratchers, beds, toys, a furminator...). I did go and donate his gastro-intestinal food and feliway to the shelter, since those have an expiry date.

Now that I am more... resigned... I have a lot of cat gear. The trees/scratchers, four litter boxes, etc.

The flat was already mostly secured, except for the bedroom window which needs a custom-made pet-proof screen which I do plan to get (I had been locking the bedroom door to avoid access to the open window until the "opened it at night" fuckup).

So I would be entirely able to take another FIV positive cat, and I am most willing to take ferals/anxious cats (Cacao himself being an ex-feral who came with a "you will never touch him" warning). I would just limit my options to cats with only FIV and who are known to get along with other cats. My flat has lockable rooms so separating the two cats for a proper introduction if Cacao returns is also possible.

Shelter workers, would you punch me in the face if I attempted another adoption?

Edit: Reality check has been obtained. I will not be adopting another cat for now.

I AM doing everything in my power to find the lost one.

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)

Episode 70 - September 23, 2026

Description:

This week Tom is joined by Amy Fitzsimmons from Dog Possible Austin for a really practical chat about life for dogs in shelters. Amy brings along plenty of real dogs she has worked with, and it's their stories that shape the whole conversation, showing how small, simple changes can make a big difference to how a dog copes in kennels.Tom and Amy talk about getting more out of the time dogs spend with staff and volunteers, why every dog doesn't need the same thing, and how slowing down can actually be better for both the dog and the person holding the lead. They also chat about the social side of shelter dogs, and why there is so much more to it than whether or not a dog can go to playgroup.Along the way they touch on shelter culture, being open to change, and why trying the easy things first often makes the most sense. If you've ever felt there just isn't enough time in the day, this episode is full of ideas you can try tomorrow.

To find out more about Amy's work, visit dogpossibleaustin.com or follow @dogpossible on Instagram.About AmyAmy is a Certified Behavior Consultant Canine (CBCC-KA) through the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers and a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC) and Certified in Shelter Behavior (CSB-D) through the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants. She is also a Fear Free Certified Trainer (FFCT), a Pet Professional Guild Canine Training Professional, and holds several certificates in ethology, animal learning, and behavior from the Ethology Institute. Prior to transitioning to dog training and behavior modification full-time, Amy was a long time public educator, working in at-risk early childhood education and serving as a teen and family crisis mentor. Her passion for providing humane, effective behavior modification and improving quality of life for dogs in homes and in shelters has only grown during well over a decade in the field. She also loves getting to work with the amazing humans who share that passion, whether for their own dogs or dogs they’re trying to help find their way home. Amy is dog mom to elder muppet/luckdragon mix Monkey and honorary house coyote Socks!

I'm a design student researching how ordinary people respond when they find animals in distress. I have experience in fostering cats and caring for dogs in and around my house.

And I'm trying to understand the information gap between finding an animal and knowing what the appropriate action is.

For those involved in animal rescue:

What mistakes or misunderstandings do you see people make most often?

And:

What is the one thing you wish people knew before trying to help an animal?

I want to understand the practical problems people encounter, so I can come up with some design solutions that could help. (Feel free to suggest any ideas you have in mind, it would be much appreciated)

Real examples would be really helpful!

Thank youu!!

I work at an animal shelter and a pretty large city and we are over run with cats. This is causing us not to be able to take any non emergency surrenders. This is causing the general public to be extremely rude and just be doen right awful to me in my coworkers. I understand that people are upset that they cannot surrender their animals but I am a firm believer that people should have other alternatives for rehomeing on animal that is not the shelter. Today we had multiple call ins and they was only 4 of us taking care of 100+ animals and doing adoption. First as soon as we open we had someone yell at us for 10 minutes because we wouldn't give the dog she was adopting a bath. We don't have a bath at our shelter. We told her she could bathe the dog when she brought it home that was not good enough for her and she plans to come back everyday until the dog goes home to complain. The dog is on stray hold so get to see her for another week That was a great start to the day. Than we had someone come in to try and surrender an animal. Told her we have no staff to intake animals on the weekend and she could come back Monday. She started freaking out saying it was an emergency, we ask her why she need to surrender. Guess what it wasn't an emergency she just didn't want the animal anymore. Told her no and to come back when our surrender services were open on Monday. She left a negative google review claiming we were not helping her during an emergency and that we were allowing the animal to suffer and that we should all be trained on intakeing . Than we had one of our animal control officers bring in a rabbit. I guess a person was sitting in our parking lot for 30 minutes with the rabbit and call animal control to take. He claims it's a stray but I'm about 100% sure that was his rabbit and he didn't want to wait till Monday to surrender it. And we're required by law to take all strays.

I feel like everyday I work some member of the general public is not happy with us. Me and my coworkers are trying our best and we love animals more than anything but we're extremely full and understaffed. We are struggling every day and I feel the general public does not understand that. I want to know if this us common at other shelters. I have only been working at the shelter for 6 months and I feel like its getting worse every week

For Animal Welfare Week, I want to recognize the people here who keep showing up for animals and for each other. The person working through another mountain of laundry. The volunteer sorting donations so someone can actually find what they need. The staff member helping a family access pet food. The person updating records, writing adoption bios, or making sure tomorrow’s supplies are ready.

Thank you. Those tasks take time, patience, and care, and they deserve recognition even when there isn’t a happy adoption photo attached.

When I asked shelter staff what volunteer help they needed beyond animal handling, I appreciated how many people took time out of already busy days to answer. Your responses helped me put together a podcast episode about the many ways people can support shelters.

One thing I wanted listeners to understand: volunteers should ask what would help your team before arriving with a plan. Your time matters, and you deserve support that actually makes your day easier.

For anyone working or volunteering in a shelter, who on your team deserves a little recognition this week? Or what’s something a volunteer did that made you feel supported?

You don’t need to name anyone or identify your shelter. I’d just love to make some room for appreciation of the people behind the work.

There is a stray animal capture service operating here, and—in violation of the rules—they destroy the animals; at least, that is what people say. Volunteers from the shelter learned that residents of a certain neighborhood had filed a complaint about a mother dog and her puppies, and that the animal control team was coming for them. The volunteers rushed over and brought the mother and puppies back to the shelter.

I’m considering quitting fostering for my local shelter because the staff I work with is too disorganized, makes illogical decisions, communicates too slowly and negatively impacts my life over and over without regard.

I had no onboarding or training, no introductions to staff, when I try to have a discussion about my foster in person the staff acts like they have zero interest in having a conversation with me. Nobody tells me their names or asks for mine

They have me come in for foster support during open shelter hours where I have to wait in line for help behind the general public in the middle of my workday. Why wouldn’t you have volunteers come in before you open to save everyone time and effort?

I try to hold space for how much the staff is juggling outside of my specific needs. I understand things get messy, etc - but still - I’m pretty burnt out pretty quickly and it’s 90% because of how disorganized and disconnected they appear to be to me.

I think fostering isn’t aligned with my goals and capacity, as much as I love supporting the dogs, the shelter isn’t supporting me in that enough with resources or even consideration. Ex, shelter wouldn’t give my last foster dog with recurring emergency diarrhea a different food option

I chose this one because they seemed to need it the most - which is clearly true - but it’s exhausting for me to deal with them. I’m constantly on edge because I have zero framework or guidelines. My fosters are fed the cheapest cornmeal food and I’m told them having diarrhea is expected. I’ve had to hand cook food for all of them, as every single one of them gets emergency diarrhea that has kept me up all night, had accidents indoors, ruined my belongings

I could say a thousand positive things as well and I do have empathy behind my frustration but I’m exhausted.

How would you handle this? What is fair for me to expect? How can I prevent burn out so I can remain patient and empathetic?

I know I am being single minded in my frustration but the way they handle support and resourcing IS the cause for my burnout, not the dogs

Though it may equally be a lack of an ability to hold my own boundaries in the face of a dog in need.

Signed - exhausted and overwhelmed foster

I started walking dogs at a local CA county shelter. I’m constantly getting emails from the volunteer coordinator saying they don’t have dog walkers signed up for a given day.

I went last weekend and there were only 3 of us, by the end of my 4 hour volunteer shift we still hadn’t gotten to all the dogs, I asked the volunteer coordinator if there were more people coming in the afternoon shift and she said barely, only two. I know a lot of retired people volunteer, but I also meet people who work and can only come on weekends like myself.

From what I’ve been seeing over the last 2 months, there’s such a heavy need for volunteers. So my question is, are there people employed by these shelters that also help get dogs out to go potty? And if not how is that even possible?

I started volunteering at a local CA shelter. I’m constantly getting emails from the volunteer coordinator saying they don’t have dog walking volunteers signed up for a given day.

I went last weekend and there were only 3 of us, by the end of my 4 hour volunteer shift we still hadn’t gotten to all the dogs, I asked the volunteer coordinator if there were more people coming in the afternoon shift and she said barely, only two. I know a lot of retired people volunteer, but I also meet people who work and can only come on weekends like myself.

From what I’ve been seeing over the last 2 months, there’s such a heavy need for volunteers. So my question is, are there people employed by these shelters that also help get dogs out to go potty? And if not how is that even possible?

Hey all!

Are there like official statistics out there around survival rates for kittens that get separated from mom too soon? (I.e. well-meaning individuals find kittens and assume they are in need of help and bring them to a shelter, removing them from mom's care when she likely just went away to hunt or hide from the human.) I think stats around this could really help highlight how important it is to NOT do that...

I am currently in my husband's home country (South American country) visiting his family and working on some business we have out here, but most of the time we live in the UK. Every time we come here I hate to see the state of the animals, I know it's a different culture and there's not the education or facilities for animal welfare that I am used to but I wish I could do something about it. Every time I end up with an animal or a few to take care of, this time I have a tiny kitten who was brought home from a building site where she was found without her mum when I'm sure she probably still should be with her, and a puppy we found abandoned on a road far away from anywhere and doused in gasoline. I took them both to the local vet yesterday and asked if there is any sort of organisation for the welfare or rescue of animals out here and there's nothing in the local area, the closest would be over an hour away. The vet has also only been in practice for a few years and before that there were no small animal vets in the area. At the moment she is offering spay and neutering services at a heavily discounted price but still a lot of people won't pay it or don't believe in it. If we were staying permanently I would start up my own rescue setup but we don't plan to move out here for a few years yet, I am trying to put together a plan to maybe start a remote funding charity and work with the vet to offer free spay/ neutering and vaccinations, but I've never done anything like that before and so would appreciate any advice or ideas of how to go about it!

Just finished scrubbing the most disgusting well‑used toilet at the shelter.
Seconds later a kitten put on a live pooping show for me.
There was even another cat standing there supervising, making sure it buried its poop correctly.

Typical shelter cat chaos 😂

I quit my job almost a month ago and taking time off for an upcoming surgery, luckily me and my partner are well off enough financially where we won't go into debt with me not having a job until next year (recovery will take a few months for me to be back at 100%)

I don't know where to go from here. I'm in a very small town with less than 10 possible jobs for me to move onto that involves a shelter or rescue of some kind. But honestly my last job had me questioning the animal shelter jobs all together. I've seem the worst of the worst, dogs being neglected to the point of death, people who should have felonies get off with misdemeanors when they should rot in prison like the dogs they left to die. My boss had a problem with me for some reason unknown to me, since I quit my other coworker has put in their two weeks and my other coworker (the only one remaining other than the director, aka my boss) says she's going to quit if the workload falls onto her, which it sounds like it has been. That same coworker has been taking about opening her own boarding buisness, which she already said I'd be the first person she reaches out to to hire, but idk.

I know you have to be mentally and emotionally tough for this kind of work. Honestly the drama with my boss hurts worse than the abuse and neglect I've seen. I gave over 2 years of my life to this place when I could have been in college getting a degree that might actually mean something some day. I've fostered over 20 kittens in the last 5 months and even though I'm not working there I'm currently fostering 3 bottle kittens because we simply don't have enough people to keep up with everything. It's funny because my boss says we rely on our volunteers so much yet here I am sill volunteering my unpaid time while also stressing about surgery prep. I don't know what to do anymore, I've never been more drained than I am now. I used to think "well it can't get any worse than it is now" and yet here we are with the shelter on the verge of shutting down for good just because no one can fill the space I left and coworkers are quitting ever since I stood up for myself and put in my 2 weeks.

Idk what response I'm looking for here. Should I even continue working with animals at all? Should I just say fuck it all and get an office job and be even more miserable with a good paycheck and benefits or tough this out, move on to a different shelter and hope and pray it's not worse than this last place? I just wish I had the funds to open and run my own business, me and my partner are saving up for a big farmhouse where I can do my own board and train thing, but that's years if not decades down the road and who knows what the economy will look like then, not any better that's for sure.

I don't know, I feel hopeless. I'll have a few months to do job searching but I just don't know where to go from here. I feel like nothing I do will ever be good enough for anybody, but then I get told it's awful without me there, yet my boss hasn't begged me to come back yet. I was told by my boss I was the best employee they've had in over ten years so for me to be so underappreciated just really sucks because I know that place won't run as good without me there, but for my own mental and physical health I just couldn't stick around any longer.

for staff that work with dog volunteers: what do you think volunteers miss/don’t see? What frustrates you? What has been helpful that you wish more volunteers knew/did? Common mistakes volunteers make? Basically, what feedback would you give your volunteers?

(context: volunteer at a shelter on dramatic flux where front line staff and volunteers are both working hard. trying to think as much as possible about how to help dogs, but also not be a burden to staff).