Canine Conundrum
January 14, 2010 5:45 AM Subscribe
Help me help homeless dogs!
I'd really like to do something to help animal rescue organizations like Best Friends Animal Society or local shelters (NYC). Problem is, I have no time or money.
I'm an attorney, so I work pretty much all of the time, and my income goes to my insane student loan balance and my insane NYC rent. Due to conflict-of-interest rules, I can only do pro bono legal work through my firm. They don't have any affiliations with animal rights orgs, and I plan to look into how to change that. Fostering animals isn't an option due to the money issue, the fact that I don't have the time to devote the proper attention to a special needs/untrained dog, and the fact that my current dog is very territorial. I plan to volunteer sporadically when I do have time, but I'd like to do more.
Any ideas on what I can do aside from giving money, regular volunteering, or fostering dogs? Please, no suggestions for "save more money" or "create more free time" - if I could, I would.
I'd really like to do something to help animal rescue organizations like Best Friends Animal Society or local shelters (NYC). Problem is, I have no time or money.
I'm an attorney, so I work pretty much all of the time, and my income goes to my insane student loan balance and my insane NYC rent. Due to conflict-of-interest rules, I can only do pro bono legal work through my firm. They don't have any affiliations with animal rights orgs, and I plan to look into how to change that. Fostering animals isn't an option due to the money issue, the fact that I don't have the time to devote the proper attention to a special needs/untrained dog, and the fact that my current dog is very territorial. I plan to volunteer sporadically when I do have time, but I'd like to do more.
Any ideas on what I can do aside from giving money, regular volunteering, or fostering dogs? Please, no suggestions for "save more money" or "create more free time" - if I could, I would.
Are incremental donations of retail priced food as efficient as saving the money and donating it directly? The shelter is likely buying in bulk.
posted by zamboni at 6:00 AM on January 14, 2010
posted by zamboni at 6:00 AM on January 14, 2010
One thing you can do is to encourage everyone you know to adopt a shelter or rescue animal. Make that your facebook status, make it your signature line in your non-work e-mail, talk it up at work and with friends. If you influence even one person, that's one less shelter/rescue animal.
Another thing you can do is to get yourself signed up with NY Cares through which you can volunteer in a shelter as fits your schedule: once a month, cool; one every three months, also cool.
posted by Pineapplicious at 6:08 AM on January 14, 2010
Another thing you can do is to get yourself signed up with NY Cares through which you can volunteer in a shelter as fits your schedule: once a month, cool; one every three months, also cool.
posted by Pineapplicious at 6:08 AM on January 14, 2010
I foster dogs and am a trainer/behaviourist, so I guess this is opinion from the 'front lines', as it were. I was thinking about ways you could fit volunteering, etc, into your schedule until I reached "my current dog is very territorial". The best thing that any pet owner can do to help rescue organizations is make sure that a) their own dog never needs to go into rescue or b) if they do have to go into rescue, they will be easy to place.
What you can do to help animal rescues is to get a trainer/behaviourist to come out and teach you how to train your dog and solve its territorial/aggression/whatever issues. If you were hit by a taxi tomorrow, your dog would be extremely difficult to place -- there are scads and scads of 'territorial' dogs in shelters, rescues, and pounds. They stay in rescue (if not euthanized) for a long time, months or even years. Most people don't want to adopt a dog with territorial issues, so the rescue needs to put the dog with someone like me for, at a minimum, months for retraining. In contrast, a well-trained, well-socialized dog spends two weeks or less in rescue (in the group I work with).
The more time a dog spends in rescue, the more it costs the rescue in terms of money (vet bills, feeding, etc) and resources (there are never enough foster homes, and difficult dogs often have a foster home and then someone like me going to that foster home and helping them train the dog).
You can find good trainers at the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, the Certification Council for Pet Dog Trainers, or through your local obedience club.
posted by Concolora at 6:21 AM on January 14, 2010 [1 favorite]
What you can do to help animal rescues is to get a trainer/behaviourist to come out and teach you how to train your dog and solve its territorial/aggression/whatever issues. If you were hit by a taxi tomorrow, your dog would be extremely difficult to place -- there are scads and scads of 'territorial' dogs in shelters, rescues, and pounds. They stay in rescue (if not euthanized) for a long time, months or even years. Most people don't want to adopt a dog with territorial issues, so the rescue needs to put the dog with someone like me for, at a minimum, months for retraining. In contrast, a well-trained, well-socialized dog spends two weeks or less in rescue (in the group I work with).
The more time a dog spends in rescue, the more it costs the rescue in terms of money (vet bills, feeding, etc) and resources (there are never enough foster homes, and difficult dogs often have a foster home and then someone like me going to that foster home and helping them train the dog).
You can find good trainers at the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, the Certification Council for Pet Dog Trainers, or through your local obedience club.
posted by Concolora at 6:21 AM on January 14, 2010 [1 favorite]
The shelter is definitely buying in bulk, Zamboni, but I've never met a shelter that wouldn't take donations, and melissasaurus isn't able to write a check. Even if you can't find your way clear to writing a check, you can often buy a can. A can/bag/box purchased each week or so will eventually add up to a grocery bag, which is a positive contribution. My local shelter encourages small donations of food and toys.
posted by clarkstonian at 6:23 AM on January 14, 2010
posted by clarkstonian at 6:23 AM on January 14, 2010
Response by poster: My current dog is very well trained, and gets along well with other dogs outside the home. He has played well with other dogs inside of the apartment, but just not sure how he'd react to another dog living here (not to mention, we don't really have the space). I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving the dogs alone for a good portion of the day while I'm at work without knowing how they'll act. But thank you for the suggestion/references. Regardless, fostering is not an option.
posted by melissasaurus at 6:27 AM on January 14, 2010
posted by melissasaurus at 6:27 AM on January 14, 2010
Best answer: The shelter is likely buying in bulk.
Wow, I'd love to work with a shelter that can afford to buy much of anything, let alone anything in bulk! The shelters I work with are all strapped for even the basics and appreciate donations of anything, including newspaper, paper towels and cleaning supplies, old towel or other materials for bedding, plus the usual food and medication. Maybe it's different elsewhere.
melissasaurus, if you're a lawyer, you're probably a good speaker, or negotiator, or someone who can convince people to do things? If this is you, you can help by being a fundraiser. You can call up local business and get them to donate products or services that a shelter can raffle or auction off. You can ask local businesses for donations outright. You can make appeals for donations to any population you can think of, by speaking to community groups or making up flyers to give out, or whatever ideas you can think of.
If you have organizing skills, you could help a shelter organize their charity events (many shelters hold fundraising events, from simple things like a car wash to the very complex, like an annual formal dance.) If you are part of a committee, you can do what you have the time for.
You can develop a relationship with the manager of a local store like Target or Walmart, and get them to regularly donate to you all their damaged bags of pet food and cat litter. Then you can drive a carload over to a shelter. If there is a warehouse nearby that handles PetSmart or any of the larger chains that carry pet products, call them up and ask if you can have their damaged goods.
If you have a few hours free once in a while, you can sign up to be on a list of people willing to drive homeless animals to rescue. Contact me if you'd like more info on that.
And I know you said fostering is not an option, but sometimes a rescue needs a short term placement for an animal. Not a true foster, but just a safe place until a spot opens up in a foster home in a week or a few days.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 7:07 AM on January 14, 2010 [1 favorite]
Wow, I'd love to work with a shelter that can afford to buy much of anything, let alone anything in bulk! The shelters I work with are all strapped for even the basics and appreciate donations of anything, including newspaper, paper towels and cleaning supplies, old towel or other materials for bedding, plus the usual food and medication. Maybe it's different elsewhere.
melissasaurus, if you're a lawyer, you're probably a good speaker, or negotiator, or someone who can convince people to do things? If this is you, you can help by being a fundraiser. You can call up local business and get them to donate products or services that a shelter can raffle or auction off. You can ask local businesses for donations outright. You can make appeals for donations to any population you can think of, by speaking to community groups or making up flyers to give out, or whatever ideas you can think of.
If you have organizing skills, you could help a shelter organize their charity events (many shelters hold fundraising events, from simple things like a car wash to the very complex, like an annual formal dance.) If you are part of a committee, you can do what you have the time for.
You can develop a relationship with the manager of a local store like Target or Walmart, and get them to regularly donate to you all their damaged bags of pet food and cat litter. Then you can drive a carload over to a shelter. If there is a warehouse nearby that handles PetSmart or any of the larger chains that carry pet products, call them up and ask if you can have their damaged goods.
If you have a few hours free once in a while, you can sign up to be on a list of people willing to drive homeless animals to rescue. Contact me if you'd like more info on that.
And I know you said fostering is not an option, but sometimes a rescue needs a short term placement for an animal. Not a true foster, but just a safe place until a spot opens up in a foster home in a week or a few days.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 7:07 AM on January 14, 2010 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks for all of the suggestions so far. I definitely have old stuff that I can donate (collars/crates/etc that my dog grew out of). In looking around, it seems like the shelters in Manhattan require a minimum time commitment for volunteers (2-3hrs per wk). Anyone know if this is actually followed? Any shelters in Manhattan that have a more flexible volunteer program?
posted by melissasaurus at 7:55 AM on January 14, 2010
posted by melissasaurus at 7:55 AM on January 14, 2010
Call them and ask. Try calling during off hours (very early, very late, weekends, holidays) when a manager is not as likely to be there. You might get to talk to someone who can tell you how it really works at that particular place.
Also search petfinder.com for names of smaller shelters or rescues. They may not have strict guidelines for volunteer hours.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 8:05 AM on January 14, 2010
Also search petfinder.com for names of smaller shelters or rescues. They may not have strict guidelines for volunteer hours.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 8:05 AM on January 14, 2010
Best answer: You can run a drive to collect supplies shelters need - Dog Food Day at work, etc. where everyone brings in a can. Time-wise it can be as minimal as printing up some flyers and sending out an email or two.
If you live in an apartment building you can set up an area where people can leave old blankets - this is something our shelter often asks for.
Of course, check with your local shelters for their actual needs and adjust accordingly.
posted by mikepop at 8:46 AM on January 14, 2010
If you live in an apartment building you can set up an area where people can leave old blankets - this is something our shelter often asks for.
Of course, check with your local shelters for their actual needs and adjust accordingly.
posted by mikepop at 8:46 AM on January 14, 2010
Response by poster: Thank you all for the suggestions. I've gathered up my old dog stuff and old towels to donate, and asked my friends to do the same. I also contacted a few shelters to see about volunteering on a flexible basis -- surprisingly a lot of them have a waiting list for volunteers! Also, from some shelter websites I got the idea to make some blankets for the pups (either sew, knit, or crochet), so I plan to do that too.
posted by melissasaurus at 1:28 PM on January 14, 2010
posted by melissasaurus at 1:28 PM on January 14, 2010
Best answer: I love BFAS! I originally donated $25 a year ago, and then last summer I held a yard sale and raised $75. (There was a sign up mentioning that proceeds went to BFAS, and I got to explain their mission to several people.) I now have a BFAS credit card, which donates 0.05% of my purchases to the organization. It's not much, but every little bit helps! I'm a full-time student so I am utterly broke (I work during breaks but wind up with like $100 by the end of each semester), so I know where you're coming from, but if it's important to you - find a way to make it happen! (If you can handle getting another credit card, or if you want to switch CCs, the BFAS card is through Chase.)
posted by etoile at 6:05 PM on January 14, 2010
posted by etoile at 6:05 PM on January 14, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by clarkstonian at 5:55 AM on January 14, 2010 [3 favorites]