By Marissa Marino
Volunteers are one of my favorite parts about
working for animal welfare non-profits. The community that is generated for a single mission can sometimes be
astounding. There are a variety of
reasons why people engage in volunteer activities. Some people volunteer to give back to their
community, others volunteer since they cannot have pets of their own and others
hope to develop friendships along the way. One common thread I see is people longing to learn new things and expand
themselves. So let’s give them what they
want! My philosophy is to empower
volunteers through education in order to develop a dedicated and helpful team
for the staff as well as the animals.
For the last 3 years, I directed the behavior
and training department at the East Bay SPCA in Oakland & Dublin, CA. During that time I developed nine volunteer
programs to help support our canine and feline populations. A few of these programs focused on canine and
feline enrichment, assisting dog training classes, canine jogging and exercise
as well as canine behavior modification.
Creating Educational Materials
In order to develop these programs I had to
create educational materials as well as hands on training curriculum. There were many skills the volunteers needed
to learn in order to safely interact with our animals. Some of these skills included what to do when
an animal mouths you, exiting and entering the kennel as well as offering an
animal space and time if they appear fearful. I have found that breaking things down into small steps for volunteers
can be most helpful when teaching a new skill. I used the principles of TAGteach in order to help each learner absorb
the information and develop the necessary handling skills.
Developing Your Own Trainings
In my upcoming webinar, I will discuss handling
skills all volunteers should know when working with animals. I will also showcase videos demonstrating
volunteers learning these and other skills.
Since every shelter is different, it is important for you to take the
knowledge you learn from this webinar and be able to apply it to your facility. Therefore, I will discuss how to develop
TAGteach trainings for your own volunteers so you can all reap the benefits of
this way of teaching.
Webinar!
Click here for more information or to register.
BONUSES!
In celebration of its International Dog Bite Prevention Challenge, non-profit Doggone Safe will donate a Shelter Family Safety Kit in a random draw to one attendee at the end of this webinar. This kit contains materials to help educate the families that visit the shelter about how to treat pets with respect, read dog body language and prevent dog bites. The retail value of this kit is over $300 and it contains:
1 Be a Tree Teacher Kit (contains 15 large heavy weight dog body language posters and more)
50 Coloring Books
20 Story Books
2 Posters
500 stickers
Anyone with a shipping address in the US or Canada who registers for the webinar will be eligible for the draw. So even if you can't attend, register anyway! You will automatically receive the recording when it is available.
To find out more about the contents of the Shelter Family Safety Kit, visit the Doggone Safe store.
BONUS#2! When you register for this webinar you will receive a discount code for 25% off our recorded webinar: TAG! Not Just Another Game at Camp. If your shelter runs summer camps for kids, this webinar will give you lots of great ideas for fostering cooperation and fun for your campers
BONUS #3! When you register for this webinar you will receive a discount code for 25% off our recorded webinar: Leave it! Impulse Control for the Teacher with TAGteach cofounder Theresa McKeon, since this is a great complement to this webinar for training shelter volunteers.
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