How to find help for animal shelter?
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Hello everyone. I'm not sure if this is the right place for such discussions (and in different countries similar situations are resolved in different ways, because of different laws and all that), but I know that there are many creative people here with different life experiences. Maybe someone will have some ideas. (English is not my native language. I apologize for the awkwardness of my letter.)
I need some advice on how to find funds to support the dogs in the shelter. Obviously, the shelter itself does not cope with it lately.
А few words about the shelter itself, what I do there and current state of affairs.
Since last September I have been working as an administrator of a training center at an animal shelter. My main responsibilities include recruiting groups of volunteers who want to train dogs, selecting dogs for training, and coordinating the entire educational process. Education is carried out mainly in areas of socialization and basic commands.
The shelter won a presidential grant that covers the costs of staff (administrator and teachers) until the end of this year and renovation of classrooms.
It is sort of no-kill shelter. But, as far as I understand, in such shelters aggressive dogs can be euthanized. But here even such dogs waiting for their new owner.
The shelter is private, so there is no permanent financial support from the government. Only from the tender for catching dogs, the shelter is given some small funds for the maintenance of these dogs. The shelter catches stray dogs, neutered, vaccinated and released back. Or some of them remain in the shelter, for example, smooth-haired dogs in severe frosts. But, as it seems to me, perhaps because of this tender, many residents believe that the shelter is municipal and is obliged to accept all animals, including those that these same residents themselves bred uncontrollably. Because of this, there are many negative reviews on the Internet that the shelter refused to accept dogs or cats (which someone found on the street or decided to get rid of a domestic dog or cat). And nobody cares that the load on the shelter is already twice as high as no more. Now there are over 600 dogs (and about 150 cats) living there. Although, the optimal number would be around 250, maximum 300 dogs. As a result, the shelter, of course, receives help, but mainly from those people who themselves can hardly make ends meet.
I periodically think about where I could find additional sources of funding. Recently, the problem has become most acute, as three out of six employees have left. (I don’t know how to call them correctly in English. These are the people who feed and clean the dogs every day). And I know that one employee quit for sure, as the salary was not paid for about 3 months. Because most of the donations went to pay for food for the animals and heating the shelter (most of the dogs are outside, but cats, as well as smooth-haired dogs and quarantine rooms are indoors). This all means that the current state of workers will not be in the proper degree to cope with cleaning and feeding, what will affect the health of the animals ._.
I once had an idea to announce a search for financial curators, like in some zoos: there is a virtual owner of some tiger, for example, who monthly transfers some amount for its maintenance. It would be very convenient to have such a button in the dog's profile on the site. However, the shelter have accounts only in Instagram and VK (a Russian social network similar to Facebook), which are regularly updated. They kinda have a website, but it's so outdated that no one uses it anymore =____= And then I remembered about Patreon. What if I try to make a page for the shelter there? Of course, this site is mainly for creative people, but I also found several shelters there. Different subscription levels could be made. Let's say
- some minimum amount (for example, $ 1)
- then $ 3
- the maintenance of one dog per month (I still need to clarify this amount. about 5-10$ for a month per dog I think)
- keeping one dog per month with some bonuses (for dog and/or for curator) etc.
How crazy does it all sound? If you yourself helped the shelter in a similar way, what options would you like to see? For example, regular photos with your ward dog, any reports, and so on. Maybe anyone have any other ideas?
Oh gosh that sounds so hard. It is SO hard to help animal shelters because so many things factor into it. From the public to the management and training of the staff to the condition of the facility and then of course, your main concern of funding. All of those things affect each other, if you don't have good staff and your facility looks like crap and the animals are prone to getting sick, people often don't want to adopt there, which in turn makes the financial aspect of it even harder.
Obviously the number of animals really needs to go down, through adoption events which can also be fundraising events, and have the cost of the animals go down temporarily to get them out. Then of course...there is the issue of euthanasia, which is an absolutely necessary evil and part of responsible animal caretaking and public safety if you have people who refuse to put down aggressive dogs, and is a more economical route, I am sorry to say, especially if they stay there and get sick and you have to throw more resources onto animals that are difficult to handle. Medical costs are no joke and disease prevention, from cleaning practices to the layout of the facility is so, so important.
Sounds like there is already a trap/neuter/release program, it sounds like where you're from that's necessary for dogs, that's the public aspect of -- keeping the population down and educating people about spay/neuter so you don't get animals in the first place. Are there many veterinarians in your area, that might help with spaying/neutering local animals, or even offer their services to the shelter to help with medical issues? Even schools that train veterinarians, I know one shelter that struck a deal with a school and sent its animals to their facility so students could get experience by working with shelter animals, for a low price since they were just in training and being monitored by actual vets.
If there is any way to get that website up and running? That is one important way to help and important in getting animals OUT and adopted, although with so many animals I can see how that would be quite hard. That fact that there aren't other social media outlets is very difficult, too. There is the old fashioned way of flyers and playing politics with important people/companies who can sponsor you guys. I have no idea what is popular in your country.
Are there other rescues or animal shelters in your area? It might be worth it to call and ask them questions. Best advice you can get is from someone who has dealt with it. I have only ever been a frustrated worker at a shelter (I guess I'm closer to the likes of people who clean and feed the dogs, I was considered an animal caretaker or attendant or "kennel technician.") I never had anything to do with the fundraising aspect of it other than attending parties and fundraisers, I have watch rescues rise from the ground up and become successful, but I have not talked to those people and I think the biggest helper for them was Facebook.
In the U.S., there are networks out there intended specifically to help animal shelters improve, and there are also conventions that occur with classes on how to properly manage animal shelters or get fundraising. Again, I just have no idea what resources are available in your country. I know there's an app that supposedly helps raise funds for animal shelters, it's called ResQwalk, which I have not used.
So sorry about your situation and sorry if I'm no help! I hope to become more educated about managing animal shelters in the future, the animal shelter world is my passion, but at the moment I am just in school to be a vet tech and am currently focused on the medical aspect of it, plus sanitation practices. I hope to expand my knowledge in the future, but the subject in its entirety there is just so much and lot of it requires huge cooperation and good management.
I was wondering if you have done or could do fundraisers. You could do something like a soup feed and bring some of the dogs/cats to be adopted to the event. People could meet their potential pets! Our local shelter does things like that. They have also done several other types of fundraisers. Being innovative helps.
I myself volunteered at a shelter with my hubby a couple years ago. It was fun! We got to walk beautiful dogs! Some of them are still in our hearts today and we are hoping they are having a happy life.
Another idea is to try to get sponsors for a pet, in order to help with the expense of the adoption. People sometimes pay to help an animal get adopted. It reduces the cost of the adoption and makes it easier for the pet to get adopted.
I am an animal lover and would love to be able to do more for them and for your situation.
Owned by a jet-black cat named Twilight! Meow!
and Thank you for your responses! Sorry for not answering for so long. I wrote most of the text some time ago, but it was necessary to put everything together somehow.
A while ago, we finally had animal cruelty laws. They don't work in all cases. But now the flayers can get a real prison sentence, and not just a monetary fine. Although, more often than not, this requires widespread publicity before the police initiate a criminal case.
At the same time, a law was created that prohibits the euthanasia of healthy animals. And this also applies to shelters. This year, there were rumors that they want to introduce into the law the possibility of the euthanasia of animals in shelters "for economic reasons." To be honest, I'm not sure that this option is suitable for our country (with this wording). I am afraid that many unscrupulous organizations can use this for their personal profit.
I know that in many countries stray dogs are those who have been thrown away by their owners or their immediate descendants. There are still a lot of wild dogs in our city and its surroundings, which have lived on the street for generations. Basically, it is they who are caught, neutered and sent back. Most of them are not aggressive and try to avoid people. But if such dog is afraid of people and at the same time shows aggression, then it is difficult to do something about it. It cannot be released, and hardly anyone will take it home. This is how such poor fellows live their whole lives in the shelter. Many residents of private houses (not apartment houses) are also a problem. Not everyone watches their dogs. For many, letting them go free and then getting rid of the puppies (in various ways) is a common practice. In general, it is worth mentioning that many people, of course, take care of their pets. They read special literature about dog behavior, care and training. But alas, there are also less responsible individuals.
Last year, the shelter won a grant to build a preferential sterilization facility. Within the framework of the program, more than a thousand sterilizations of cats and dogs were carried out: both the owner's animals (especially from the elderly people), and animals from the streets.
There is no veterinarian at the shelter at the moment. But there are several who come from a few clinics. At the moment, free sterilization is over. But the prices are still lower than in most clinics in the city.
"Again, I just have no idea what resources are available in your country." Well, me too xD I mean, this is a relatively new area for me. Previously, I was not particularly interested in the needs of the shelters, as I simply did not have the opportunity to help. At the moment, I myself have 2 dogs and 5 cats (3 of them have chronic diseases). As you can see I failed as a foster ^^' (it was planned that I would help most of these pets find a new home, but they remained with me). Therefore, I myself am not very familiar with the organization of fundraising within the framework of an entire shelter. The shelter itself is not new. Officially, it seems to be 18 years old. But the city administration gave them the building only in 2010 or so. And those shelter building ... it must be seen. How it still stands is not known. Several rooms have been renovated over the years. But sometimes there is a feeling that somehow everything is developing there slowly. I don’t know, maybe there’s a lack of clearer and more systematic management.
I really like the idea of sponsoring specific pets. Just need to figure out how to do it in our case. And by the way, there is no need reduces the cost of the adoption because it costs 300 rubles per dog (at the current dollar rate, it is less than $4). It's like going to the store and buying 0.5 kg of good cheese. or 250 grams of ground coffee. or one bottle of good cheap wine. I don't know what else to compare with ^^' 1 liter of milk and 1 booth of white bread will cost about 100 rubles together. in short, the amount is insignificant.
I am planning to create an Instagram account. There I will upload photos of dogs from the shelter. Plus some notes about them, perhaps the stories of volunteers. I will mainly write about the dogs that volunteers train with, but sometimes there will be others who are also ready to go home. Also, whenever possible, I want to periodically add some useful information: the basics of dog behavior, what difficulties you can face and what to do about it. Perhaps I will also try to review useful literature. I have already started writing several articles. But I got stuck at the very beginning: I can't think of a name for the account. Already went through a bunch of options. The difficulty is that this is not 100% my personal account, which could be called whatever you want. A kind of semi-official work account. And it seems that it is necessary to name it in some way connected with our shelter. But, perhaps, I am wrong and it would be possible to come up with a completely unrelated name.