This time last year, we had focused on making good choices for bringing new pets into the home for the holidays. This year, the good folks at the Clipper asked about some volunteer opportunities within the community where not only animals could be helped, but where they could be helpful as well. Luckily for us, Massachusetts has many programs in place where people can give back during that time of year when needs are at their highest.
Help for pets
Between needing to exercise shelter pets in colder weather and managing adoptions during the season when pets are placed at their highest numbers, the need for volunteers to help local animal shelters managers is always high. Anyone who owns pets know the time involved in just handling 1-2 at home. Imagine that times several dozen… plus all of the other chores necessary to keep a high-traffic building functioning, especially in the winter. Cats need to be shuffled from cage to cage to allow cleaning, litter boxes have to be changed, dirty dishes have to be cleaned, clean dishes have to be filled with food, bedding must be washed, and all of the normal building maintenance must be done. It’s not easy work, but when you’re done, you get to play with dogs and cats! That’s also an extremely important job. Many of these poor critters are coming from rather unsavory environments and need exposure to good human beings to rebuild trust and love. Patient play time and cuddles isn’t just a reward for volunteering, it’s a necessary tool in getting animals ready for new homes.
In town, Standish Humane Society does an amazing job placing cats into their forever homes. Not only do they take in strays and surrendered pets locally, but they also take in cats from other shelters who have been sitting without an adoption for a long time. At the shelter, they are socialized and become great candidates for pets (Standish Humane Society: 781-834-4663). The Duxbury Animal Shelter, while not an active rescue, could also be an opportunity for people to contribute their time to help local animals.
The surrounding towns also have municipal and private rescues that need your help. The Plymouth and Scituate Animal Shelters take in a high volume of animals and also place a lot of effort into their placement programs (Plymouth Animal Shelter: 508-888-1186, Scituate Animal Shelter: 781-544-4533). For private rescues, you could contact Papa’s Pet Project in Plymouth (774-205-5151) and The Last Resort in Hanover (781-826-9560). Both are no-kill shelters that work closely with local shelters for both rehab and placement.
For a more broad-reaching experience that also provides exposure to other aspects of animal rescue, including large animals like horses and farm animals, you can also contact the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. For anyone following the news last summer and fall, you may remember the large-scale rescue of over 1,000 animals of various species from a farm in Westport, MA. While these kind of field operations are (thankfully…) rare, there is still a lot of work to do with those rescued animals. There are three centers where one could help in this respect. The closest is on the Cape in Centreville and focuses on smaller pets, but there is also their Nevins Farm in Methuen where a wider array of animals need care. Lastly, the Angell Animal Medical Center in Jamaica Plain also houses one of the largest and most advanced veterinary medical facilities in the country. While all of these facilities need the same basic help mentioned above, they also have a need for volunteers in education, children’s programs, and with the medical care on many of the rescued animals. Visit mspca.org for information on all of these locations.
For all shelters and programs mentioned above, there is usually an orientation and there may be an age requirement unless younger volunteers have parents along for the day. When you contact them, they will discuss any other requirements and let you know the areas of need.
Helping Wildlife
Despite our best efforts, humans and our regular lives can lead to a lot of issues for wildlife locally. Whether it’s the obvious automobile-related injuries or an owl getting stuck in a soccer net, unnatural phenomenon can lead to animals in-need. In these cases where humans are to blame, humans can also step in to be part of the solution. There are many organizations in Massachusetts that not only help injured animals, but also provide education and programs to decrease these instances of these issues.
The Tufts Wildlife Clinic located at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in North Grafton, MA may be one of the most involved and far-reaching in the world. Started as a small clinic seeing a few hundred cases a year, it is now massive facility that cares for thousands of injured animals annually, all free of charge. Their program has been repeated all over the country and they have also established programs looking at global animal health and conservation. Volunteers here can help with animal care in rooms specifically designed to house reptiles, amphibians, waterfowl, and many other species. There are even several giant flight cages where eagles, falcons, and other large birds are able to rehabilitate. As they help care for these animals, volunteers learn about their diets, habitats, current threats, and the medical care involved with treating their current injuries. Having worked there myself, it is a very rewarding experience. Releasing a rehabilitated patient back into the wild is exhilarating. Visit wildlife.tufts.edu for more information.
If the 90-minute drive to central Mass might be a little too far, you can also help out locally. The New England Wildlife Center in South Weymouth is another great opportunity. Like Tufts’ Wildlife Clinic, this center started as a small clinic by a handful of folks with a passion for helping both animals and people. It has now grown to a substantial, comprehensive center for treating injured animals and exotic pets. They work closely with schools to educate and allow students to encounter animals they would normally never handle in their typical school day. To date, they have treated over 75,000 animals and the need for extra hands in that care is always high. Visit newildlife.org for more details.
Helping People Using Animals
When we keep talking about helping animals, it’s easy to forget that people need help too and there are actually many programs where animals are the ones providing that actual assistance. Both service animals and therapy animals have become a huge part of treating afflictions in people. But, these animals don’t just get to that point naturally. There are a lot of man-hours put in first to make sure they are ready. That is where volunteers can step in.
National Education for Assistance Dog Services (NEADS) is a non-profit organization founded over 40 years ago with the goal of providing service dogs to people with various needs. On top of the usual seeing-eye and hearing dogs, they also train dogs to help veterans & other folks with disabilities, ministry & counseling services, independence dogs for children with disabilities, and social dogs for children and people within the autism spectrum. They receive very little federal support and rely heavily on private donors and volunteers to perform this task. I have personally been volunteering with this group since 2003 working with their “Prison Pups” program where puppies are placed with individual inmates at local correctional facilities. These inmates then train their dogs for an entire year… every day… all day. They get a very good life despite the surroundings and come out the other end ready to be placed with a person in-need. It is very rewarding work. Their main training center is in Princeton, MA. While volunteering opportunities exist at that center, I realize that may also be a bit of a hike for most. However, they are also looking for volunteer families to take the pups from the many local prisons on weekend to their homes and begin the process of acclimating them to environments more like the homes they will be going to themselves. You just go to the facilities, pick up the pups and their food, and then get to play with them all weekend. Who wouldn’t want to do that? They only catch is you have to give them back…. If you are interested in helping, visit NEADS.org.
You can also help people using your own pets. If you are a pet owner, you know the emotional effects they can have on us. Directors of different care facilities recognize this as well and, while care pets along with their patients isn’t feasible, having pets visit these places has become an important part of both enrichment and rehabilitation. There is a national organization called Pet Partners that has set the standards for therapy animals and how they can help. Locally, that program is run through the vet school at Tufts in a program called Paws for People. In this program, owners and their pets are educated in providing visits to facilities such as hospice care centers, memory loss & elder centers, adolescent care centers, physical rehabilitation clinics, public school & libraries, and hospitals. The effects of these visits on the people for which they care is remarkable. People that have been sitting without interaction for days can come alive when a dog or cat arrives at their feet. And it’s not just small animals that can help. Our own Dr. Beth Buchholz uses horses in her work with autistic programs to help with physical interactions, confidence building and social programs. There is obviously some screening involved before pets are allowed into the training program, but if they fit the need, it can be a very rewarding opportunity for you and your pet. Many of our clients have already done the training and have been volunteering their time with their dogs at some of our local facilities. If you are interested in having your pet be a therapy animal, check out vet.tufts.edu/community for the Paws for People program as well as some other volunteering opportunities.
If you would like to discuss any of these programs further before reaching out, please feel free to call the Animal Hospital and we can chat about them. Otherwise, I hope this has given some of you some ideas for sharing of yourselves this holiday season in helping animals and their humans!