Volunteering

As of August 26, 2024, we have the following regular volunteer openings:

Cat caregivers for the Sunday and Monday breakfast shift  (8:00 – 9:00)

Dog walkers/caregivers for Monday midday, Saturday dinner and Saturday evenings (timing is flexible, but most volunteers go around 8:00 or 9:00 pm for this shift).

We are always looking for foster families to care for cats, kittens, bunnies and dogs. We are also looking for help with our Spring cleanup (trimming shrubs, raking leaves, putting down mulch and doing other outside maintenance). If you are interested in any of these openings, please fill out the volunteer application. 

Ways to Volunteer:

Daily Feeding, Care and Cleaning
Our cat volunteers feed the cats breakfast and dinner every day of the week, scoop litter boxes, socialize with the cats and clean cages.  Our dog volunteers feed breakfast and dinner and also walk the dogs at lunchtime and around 8:00 p.m. for a total of four visits per day for the dogs. All volunteers must go through training and then work with experienced volunteers to ensure procedures are followed.

Transporting Pets to the Shelter or to the Vet
We are always looking for ways to reduce our costs so we can afford to help more pets. One way we do that is by taking advantage of the low-cost spay/neuter clinics in the area. We use Tufts Vet School’s Luke and Lily Lerner Clinic and other area clinics. They are close enough for us to use in addition to our wonderful local vet clinics. One of our many volunteer opportunities is to drive our pets to their surgery appointments or bring them home after.  If you can help by driving to or from one of these clinics, please let us know.

Basic Obedience Training for Dogs
Knowing basic commands such as Sit, Down and walking nicely on a leash helps the dogs find homes much faster.

Foster 
If you are interested in fostering a litter of kittens or a mom cat and kittens, we can always use more fosters. You will need to provide a separate room (many of our fosters use a bathroom) away from your own pets.

If you are interested in fostering an active dog and working on his/her basic obedience training, we occasionally have dogs that need to spend some time in a foster home prior to being adopted. Previous dog care and training experience is required.

Please fill out our volunteer application and check off that you are interested in providing a foster home.

Other Volunteer Opportunities
Here are just a few of the things that need to be done on an ongoing basis. If you can help with any of these tasks, we really need you!

• serving as an adoption counselor to help match potential adopters with the right pet
• laundry — we always seem to have laundry to do!
• care and feeding of the shrubs and other landscaping
• taking the recycling to the transfer station each week
• Cleaning and organizing
• Taking photos and videos of the pets for our website and social media