Beautiful And Less Beautiful Every Day Animal Shelter Occurrences

A group of Reddit users and animal shelter volunteers took to the interwebs to express both their frustration and satisfaction with their respective shelters! It's no doubt that some amazing bonds are made in shelters between rescue animals and their adoptive parents, but it ain't always bells and whistles. There are many difficult aspects of this super rewarding volunteer gig!

Adoption can be the most amazing experience ever and have a huge impact on an animal's life as well as your own life! BUTTTT- you need to be prepared for it. A lot of these difficult shelter experiences can be avoided or minimized if folks thought long and hard about whether or not they are ready to take on all the responsibilities that come along with adopting a rescue. More beautiful shelter moments please, less less beautiful ones. 

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  • 01
    Font - What working at a shelter has shown me. [Discussion] I'm creeping on a month of working at a no-kill shelter. I work in adoptions so I process the adoption and if the dog is in the building I walk them out to their families. It's oftentimes super rewarding, exciting, and amazing. I handle a lot of puppies! It can also be so00 disappointing. Thankfully I don't deal with dog returns directly, but I do see all the info regarding them.
    via kawaiikidney

    First of all, a big hats off and lots of respect to all of the amazing animal shelter volunteers and workers. This work is super underappreciated and so so valuable. These folks are literally giving these animals second chances at life and doing everything they can to get them to warm, loving homes.

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  • 02
    Font - I had a wonderful older lady today who was the absolute best. She found a puppy she liked, she was super receptive, she donated a lot of money, and she just was SOO enamored and sweet to her new pup. She also gave me and my coworkers books as thanks!!! It was the sweetest experience I've had to date. It really made my day and I'm full of happiness for the pup. However, I've dealt with people who get a puppy... it's exciting, they're saying how they're going to care for it... And they retu
    via kawaiikidney

    We love a beautiful animal shelter moment! And this sweet old lady certainly provided both OP and all of us with one. It's the donated books as a thanks for us. 

  • 03
    Font - We have a lot of programs and teams here that try to aid adopters to become prepared. They get free behavioral assistance for the rest of their lives from us, alongside manyyyy other programs. And yet I saw a man today insisting to return a puppy because it was "very aggressive" and he "feared for his safety" so much so that he kept the puppy in the crate. He sent us a video of the "aggression" and my whole team almost died. The puppy was on his back and chewing on his shoelace.... that's
    via kawaiikidney

    Okay, and this is what we're talking about. No hate to this guy, butttt come on man. The puppy was on his back and chewing on a shoelace, that sounds absolutely adorable if you ask us!! 

  • 04
    Font - It just occurs to me how little experience / knowledge / research people do before getting a dog. A huge commitment. It's crazy to me. Anyways, I just wanted to give some experience here. There's a lot of negative but also a ton of positive experiences. Il'd say 85% of people I deal with are very pleasant and nice. I love my job so much. It just kind of makes me understand why some rescues are sooo specific. I mean our motto is as long as they're in a good home... we adopt out to apartmen
    via kawaiikidney
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  • 05
    Font - samanthasgramma · 4d 1 Award 35 years ago, hubs and I were talking about getting a dog, and wound up at a shelter. We weren't dog newbies, but this was our first together. I was eyeing a sweet little Bich, while he was a way down, talking with a dog. I joined him, took one look at an 18 month old, 115 pound black Lab (44" chest), and that was back when I weighed the same. "He's awfully BIG" I moaned. Hubs wanted to see the beastie better, and as soon as the kennel was opened, the dog took
    via samanthasgramma
  • 06
    Font - Franklin7377 · 3d I live in the rural South and volunteer at 3 surrounding shelters....but, mostly our local county shelter. Our whole family volunteers. Our children love it. We have plenty of young volunteers...our shelter allows children as young as 8 yrs old. Most of our volunteers are either younger than 25 or older retired individuals. My experience is polar opposite to yours. While it is true that a large majority of the dogs around here are used for working and hunting purposes, a
    via Franklin7377
  • 07
    Font - salamandah99 · 4d I volunteer at a shelter in the rural southern USA and the blatant disregard for life here is crazy. I have 5 dogs of my own that I picked up off the side of the road at various times. The last one is the one that got me to the shelter. I was considering surrendering her so I went to the shelter to see what I needed to do. Well, they needed people to clean kennels and walk dogs. I kept the dog and kept volunteering. It is hard and soul destroying sometimes. On the other
    via salamandah99
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  • 08
    Font - 2rmix • 3d I do volunteer work for shelters since 2011. I am in central Europe. First I was at a bigger animal shelter in the city, now I am working with a dog shelter in a rural area. I like this one so much better. Thankfully we have an awesome volunteer community. Every Saturday is an open day, every dog (100-130) is getting out for a walk. And the dogs know when Saturday comes! It is incredible how their inner clock works. They are super excited! We only adopt out for the candidates o
    via 2rmix
  • 09
    Font - ImAFuckingSquirrel 4d Well, they needed people to clean kennels and walk dogs. This is the most shocking thing I've read in the thread so far. Every shelter l've gone to has been full to the brim with volunteers. Like, wait months to get on a list to be considered to get into the training class to be able to walk dogs kind of full. 4 26 3 + mrPastyMuffin · 4d Really? Every story l've ever heard was that shelters were always in desperate need of volunteers.
    via ImAFuckingSquirrel
  • 10
    Font - Anonycron • 3d Where are you located? I have decades of experience with US shelters and rescues and I can't recall ever knowing one that wasn't constantly looking for volunteers on some level. Maybe the large big city shelter systems have volunteer wait lists? DoglandDog2andMe · 3d In Chicago, yes, ime some of the rescue shelters had waiting lists and/or never contacted back people who asked to volunteer. Some have a surfeit of volunteers while others likely still need people but don't ha
    via Anonycron
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  • 11
    Font - fennelanddreams · 3d This is my experience up north. I needed two references and to do trainings. I had previous volunteering experience with environmental and food nonprofits, but nothing dog specific, so it didn't work out this time around. 金2 ImAFuckingSquirrel • 3d I forgot about the references that a few places requested. I'm not an extrovert and struggle to make friends when I move and reddit is always like, go volunteer! And then I get there and they're basically screening whether
    via fennelanddreams
  • 12
    Font - Dreamsong_Druid · 4d The lack of thought people put into getting a dog is insane. G Reply 46 + jonimhess · 3d Our dog is 9 years old now, we got him when he was 4 months. He and his litter mates and mama were taken to a shelter, he was adopted at 8 weeks...and brought back because he tore up a pumpkin patch when they left him alone in the yard. They had a baby human and couldnt deal with a energetic pup as well. To be fair, he was a hard puppy, for like the first 2 years. A very good boy
    via Dreamsong_Druid
  • 13
    Font - luvDogsNow • 3d I just have to comment on this. I am not a shelter worker, but one of the last things you said hit me at home. I love that, but the amount of returns we get because their "landlord didn't allow it" even though we asked if they checked first is... agh Many years ago, we had this experience. We confirmed with the landlord when we rented the house that he allowed dogs. He said there was an additional security deposit, but that was it. A month or two after we moved in, we brou
    via luvDogsNow

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