Liesje
Posted : 5/6/2007 7:40:54 PM
Liesje, so you are a volunteer too? Or are you you on staff? This dog is the first Akita I've seen come to the shelter since I started volunteering nine months ago. I've attached a picture of him. According to staff, he is rather small for an Akita.
One thing I wanted to ask you... do you think a lot of volunteers are very sympathetic towards animals? Especially the ones who are devoted and come very often. I'm not a dog walker, I'm actually on the training team. 98% of the volunteers are dog walkers. Very few seem to have an interest in being a trainer.
I'm a volunteer, not on staff. My volunteer title is "Get Fit with Fido" meaning I am supposed to do runs, jogs, or brisk walks with the dogs, as opposed to the "regular" dog volunteers that will let them out into runs to play, give them love inside their kennels, etc. We're also supposed to do as much obedience as possible, preferably after they've expended a lot of their energy. My typical period with a dog goes something like this: put dog in a run for a few minutes so hopefully it poops there and not on the walk, jog with the dog for about a block to get it away from all the other dogs and people, then take the dog on a longer walk and while on the walk work on "sit", "down", "heel", and "stay". I'm not sure what percent of volunteers do which jobs, but I think it's pretty even. When we go on Thursday, there is one girl who only runs with dogs, three that will bring them out in runs to play but don't actually take them on walks, and one or two that prefer to stay inside and will brush the dogs, pet dogs that are skittish, clean out kennels, etc. There's also people that come in to pet cats and a lot of little girls that come in to hold the rabbits and guinea pigs and clean their cages.
In my experience, the staff (with the exception of the behaviorist on staff) are more sympathetic towards the dogs than the volunteers. IMO, I've met more volunteers that have good experience training dogs and understanding dog psychology than staff members. However, by staff member, I'm mostly referring to people like the administrative staff and events and volunteer coordinators. The vet and vet techs aren't usually around the public areas during open hours (they're back in admiting doing PTS or evaluating the new admits that aren't yet put up for adoption). A lot of the staff are the kinds of people that will let every dog you walk pull like a mule "because he's sad and has to live in the shelter" or will make excuses for aggression and rough play biting. They're the ones that come in and talk to the dogs like they're babies, cooing at them and massaging them even if the dog is totally misbehaving and should be ignored. The staff are really great people, but their primary jobs aren't working with and understanding dogs, so I guess it makes sense that they unintentionally reinforce bad behaviors and sometimes undo the work the volunteers having been putting a lot of effort into. The volunteers also often get annoyed because staff are notorious for mis-naming the dogs. For example, we just had a dog go home that they called a lab/pit mix and she was clearly a plott hound. It's not that big of a deal, except the new family thinks they are getting a retriever type dog when in fact this is a hound, so they are falsely prepared for what type of temperament to expect based on breed. I don't let it get to me because I know they genuinely love the animals and it's not their fault they have a different job to do than be obsessed with training methods and dog psychology like a lot of us volunteers.
Anyway, I haven't been to the shelter in a week (I needed a break after all the hoopla surrounding the bite incident), but I check their PetFinder every day and see we have another Akita: