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Diary of a Volunteer : Part 2 : Orientation

The day had arrived for me to take my orientation day at the RSPCA, I was excited and somewhat apprehensive, I had no idea how I would react around the poor animals.  I arrived just before 9 am at shelter and waited with all the other anxious Volunteers. The incessant barking and howling was quite sad.  A rather distressed lady was yelling at the poor receptionist, accusing her of stealing her dog. Once the lady got her dog and left muttering obscenities under her breath, the meet and greet lady came over and assured us that this rarely happens. In a space of 10 minutes we saw 2 cats get surrended.

Our Volunteer Coordinator came and collected us and took us through the maze of the centre to a little back shed that had been set up for training purposes. We all put our names down and collected our name badges. Approximately 20 people were in attendance.

Our Coordinator went through all the general procedures of the RSPCA, how things worked, the different campaigns going, different positions available and our responsibility as representatives to the organisation.  One of the animal trainers came in and did some demonstrations with one of the shelter dogs for the Enrichment Program. The Enrichment Program sounds like the best job as a volunteer. You get to go and play with the animals to give them more human interaction, teach them tricks and generally give them some love and stimulation. I learned a lot from her presentation just in terms of teaching dogs and I am definitely going to use her approach for teaching the naughty beagles.

We learnt that there are over 400 Volunteers at the Fairfield facility and that the coordinator gets over 50 enquiries a day. The problem seems to be having people commit long term, and having to recruit and retrain people.

After the presentations we were given a tour of the facility. The centre is currently on 6 acres of land and will be moving sometime soon to a facility at Wacol that has 13 acres. It was good to see the different areas, and stages of the adoption process.  Dogs that had been found would be put in an area where they would stay for 3 days to give the owners ample time to try and collect their pets, before having a behaviour assessment, being neutered and put up for adoption. Animals that had been surrended would be put in an area for 24 hours – just in case the people change their mind, then they would go through the behaviour assessment and the desexing. The cages were all well equiped with toys and comfy places to sit. It was amazing how much the community give the RSPCA to help out in this aspect.

So lets talk about the big elephant in the room – euthanasia, as a volunteer we don’t have anything to do with it. All we know is that it does happen and one thing I learnt is that it is not a matter of space. The decision is made based on behaviour, health and whether or not the animal has a chance of becoming a good pet. The dogs and cats stay in the adoption area until they are adopted. Some animals have been known to stay for as long as 6 months.

The foster care area was by far the best. Here you can foster animals who are too young to be desexed and be fully vacinated or need more rehabilitation. There was the most adorable little puppies (maltese cross) that you just wanted to cuddle. I am trying to convince my other half to let us adopt – I may need pictures to convince him!

So I walked away from one half day wanting to change my whole profession it was that inspiring. I can’t wait to actually start working there and actually start helping out.

If you are interested in Volunteering with RSPCA and would like more information visit the website (http://www.rspca.org.au/jobs.html) and find your nearest location.