Dog Walking

[terriko]

For a while now, I've been wondering about volunteering as a dog walker for the humane society.

Some thoughts:

- It's a non-trivial time commitment.
+ It can replace my fitness class, and I manage that time commitment fine.
- I don't think I can skip out as easily (not worried about weather, but deadlines and exhaustion).

- I haven't had formal obedience training, which they imply they'd want.
+ I did grow up with a dog, and have walked dogs with varying levels of training.
- I haven't got a lot of experience with larger dogs.
+ But I have managed medium-sized ones fine.

+ I've had two people offer to come with me
+ So it'd be a fun, active activity with friends where we're doing good for the community.
+ And unlike my fitness classes, this one's free!

- It may be incredibly hard to avoid falling in love with the dogs.
+ But I can't reasonably own a dog in the near future, so this could be a nice compromise.


So the question in my mind is mostly, "would they accept me as a volunteer?" Their page makes it quite clear that they prefer more experienced walkers, but I figure there's no harm in asking, and I think I'm trainable if they're willing. I'm going to wait 'till mid January when my latest paper has been submitted and I have a better sense of my schedule for this term.

But if anyone has done this or has any advice, or suggestions for other neat things I could do if they don't want me for this... I'd love to hear it.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Go for it! I'm sure you have plenty of experience and they can probably give you a few pointers in the a couple of minutes.

Stormy
http://stormyscorner.com

[reverie-realization.blogspot.com]

As a suggestion for how to volunteer - don't try to leave it up to email. Either phone (better) or go in person (best) to volunteer. From personal experience, the humane society doesn't tend to reply to emails offering to volunteer. They are much more likely to be willing to hear you out if you go in person and look enthusiastic and stuff. Also, I'm sure they're less picky than their page makes them sound. They just want to weed out the flaky teenagers who need volunteer hours for their high school diploma. :D

-Kate

[(Anonymous)]

I'd say go for it. The worst that happens is they say no or you find that it is not a good match for you (in which case you apologize profusely and back out of the program). I doubt they'd hold it against you if you give it your best effort.

I have at least one friend who often takes trips to play with pet store puppies to socialize them despite never intending to buy them, so your position isn't that weird. ;)

Obedience training is one part general behavioral psychology, one part (positive) operant conditioning, and one part understanding specific dog social cues. I'm guessing that if you lived with a dog as a child you have a good chunk of that third bit down. The other two are very simple to learn. I learned enough in four weekly classes (when I had a dog in high school) to successfully train my cats. Try youtube for free lessons.

ValleyViolet