I volunteer for a human society about 45 minutes away from me - mostly public relations work. I stopped volunteering at the county pound 10 minutes away from me for several reasons. And I'm posting this just to vent and to see if anyone else has experienced this.
Originally I was willing to do any hand's on work. Honestly I really liked bathing the dogs. While there, I learned that the "paid" staff didn't work much, but stood outside and smoked. I was constantly helping potential adopters and even some surrender-ers and I wasn't sure what I was aloud to do as a volunteer. I was doing someone elses job without any training. And if you've ever worked with people, you know how annoyed they can get if you can't find them and answer.
Further, the working staff would just stand and watch me as I would struggle to leash, lift and lunge the poor dogs into the tub. I slipped and fell once and they laughed at me One time a husky mix lifted his lip at me, while I was bathing him (mind you the height of the tub made the dog face level with me). I told someone on the staff and they expected me to lift this aggressive dog out of the tub by myself without a muzzle. It's not like they were doing anything.
3. At the time that I volunteered for the county pound, I also worked at a pet supplies store. Well, that pet supplies store donated a pallet (25 - 40lb bags) of Pro Plan dog food to the shelter. It wasn't expired or damaged - the store owner just want to do some philanthrapy. Well, the animals at the pound didn't recieve any of the Pro Plan. To my dismay, the dogs at the pound were being feed Kibbles and Bits or something colorful - maybe Ol' Roy's imatation of the food. Where did the 25 bags of Pro Plan go?...the staff and the county K9 Police force. Now I understand that the county K9 police force is important, but they already recieved a discount from the same pet supplies store.
I informed the store owner (my boss) of this. He gave them 25 bags of expensive dog food and then he lost more money because the county K9 police force and the pound staff wasn't comming in to buy their dog food because they got it for free.
Sadly, he decided to stop assisting the county pound too and now donates and assists with the humane society (which is much more organized) that I volunteer for.
Of course this was 3 years ago and I've noticed they've made some changes since.
Is this about par for a county pound? Anyone else had bad volunteering expiriences.