Orientation 1 Complete

So I just got back from the shelter's first orientation, there's two you must complete before you can begin volunteer work. The first, today's, was a basic overview of all the different areas you can volunteer and tasks you can complete as well as a tour of the building. I really learned a lot but I also saw a lot of room for improvement. They have a feral cat program where they catch and attempt to gentle the ferals until they are adoptable. Among those are often lost cats that are just too panicked to allow anyone to handle them. They took us into the area and I must say it was downright pathetic. Their hearts are in the right place but they need a LOT of work. There were maybe 30 cages, very small, maybe a foot by a foot wide and long and a foot and a half tall. The smell was terrible. they do have volunteers that foster these cats for 3-4 months until they are domesticated but they also said that this was the section that had the most euthanasia. Yes, they do euthanize. They try to keep it as their last resort but cases that are too aggressive(nobody has enough time for them) do get put to sleep. On the whole though they are trying so hard to find forever homes for everyone and treat the animals as well as they can.

From here I go to the 2nd orientation which is specific to working with the dogs(there's one for cats as well) where I will be trained mostly on how to get the dogs in and out of the cages. They offer a more in depth obedience class but that is not required. As soon as the class has been taken(next Sunday) I will be able to begin working/training the dogs in the morning and will have photo slide shows on this blog of adoptable dogs currently at the shelter. I am very excited to get started and thank everyone who shows interest and reads this blog!