Volunteer Teams and Programs at the Philadelphia Animal Control Shelter
Volunteering at the shelter is unlike anything else in the world! The people are great, the work is so important, and the animals really need our volunteers to help them. Our volunteers really save lives! Below are some of the great programs run by our volunteers in coordination with our amazing and hardworking Animal Control lifesaving staff. Not a volunteer – yet? Just go to http://www.pspca.org/careers/volunteer and after you sign up for your orientation, let us know, and we’ll help you get started saving lives at the shelter! Oh by the way – our cat resources are on the way! Here’s the list.
Team Walkers
Getting our awesome dogs out of their kennels and walking them around the shelter grounds (on the leash of course), is the very heart of volunteering. Right now at our shelter, most dogs don’t get out of their kennels more than once or twice a week! This team encourages people to meet up and walk dogs together, making it more fun, and so while one person is walking the dog, another can make sure it’s coming back to a clean “home.” Walking the dogs also helps to keep them adoptable by getting them exercise and keeping them house trained. Many volunteers pick certain days each week and do this with friends. In the warmer months, we also hold “Wash & Walks” on certain evenings, where we wash the dogs and let ‘em dry off outside. To help out, or to just find out more about volunteering, send an email to pkottsieper@gmail.com or mvmcharlie@yahoo.com , and just write “Volunteering” in the subject line.
Pen Pal Program
Some dogs just have to wait longer than others – sometimes months – to find their forever home. That’s a long time to be in a small kennel. These dogs are smart, loving, healthy, and behaviorally adoptable. Our fabulous Pen Pal volunteers pair up with these special dogs – each “adopting” one to give extra attention to, and provide special, one on one socialization and enrichment through obedience training. Pen Pals also help promote their dogs for adoption on facebook and blogs, and sometimes meet potential adopters at the shelter when their schedules permit. Our Pen Pal Program improves the quality of life for these dogs and prioritizes their adoptions – and then celebrates when an adoption is made! To become a Pen Pal and change the life of your favorite shelter dog, please contact erindoody8@hotmail.com, or go to
www.facebook.com/#!/pages/ACCTPenPals/265880446684
Adoption Events Team
On weekends, our Adoption Events volunteers pick up several adoptable dogs and cats from the shelter and get them out of the shelter to adoption “events” to make lifesaving matches. These events are often held at pet stores like PetSmart, parks and street fairs, and even outside supermarkets and shopping centers. They’re a great way to get the animals out for a few hours, meet adopters, promote our shelter, and have fun. We’re also always looking for people who can provide great new locations, and promote these events on Craigslist, Facebook and other social networks, and post flyers announcing the events. To find out more, or to help coordinate one of our adoption events, please contact Christina Voigt cytherea2@msn.com or Teri Rocco terirocco@gmail.com.
Chow Hounds (The Great Chicken and Rice Team)
Many of our dogs are malnourished, ill, or both, when they are brought to the shelter, and require supplemental nutrition to help restore them to good health and a normal weight, and get ‘em all handsome looking for their potential adopters. Our volunteer “Chow Hounds” have a Chicken and Rice Program to ensure that our needy dogs receive this nutrition. Volunteers boil and cut up pieces of boneless chicken and plain white rice, fill lots of plastic baggies with them, and then put those in a freezer at the shelter until they are needed. When the shelter is out of chicken and rice, our vols take to the phones and emails, and get cooking! Don’t our volunteers just rock? To join this cool team, please contact mvmarchese@comcast.net.
Petfinder Team
Is your inner Animal Photographer itching to be “let out”? Can you write that perfect one paragraph bio that saves an animal’s life? Petfinder.com and Craigslist are the two most popular websites where potential animal adopters go to search for their perfect pet. Many people visit these sites every day to “look at” all the adoptable shelter and foster animals in our area, including those from our shelter. Others then “share” these listings on facebook and myspace, to get the animals even more exposure. Who takes lots of these pictures and does lots of these fabulous write-ups for our shelter? The volunteers! We always need people to take pictures, and write these bios! This is really important work – no experience necessary. Come on down to the shelter, get creative and get published! To join this rockin’ team, please contact christajwagner@gmail.com.
The Volunteer Behavior Team
The Behavior Team is a group of volunteers that work with animals to keep them well-behaved while at the shelter. Some tasks include: assisting in obedience classes offered to the public, teaching obedience class for the shelter’s resident and foster dogs, and providing enrichment opportunities to the shelter dogs to keep them happier during their stay at the shelter, through play groups and short trips outside of the shelter.
