My Nonprofit Reviews

I've been a volunteer with the Arizona Humane Society (AHS) since 2008. Mainly I foster (many!) dogs, work at one of the Petique retail stores where I use AHS' online scheduler to assign myself to shifts when my personal calendar has an opening , and help out with special projects.

My hope is many people will use this site to share their outstanding "big picture" stories about AHS. So, I'm going to take a different tack and paste below a copy of what I recently emailed to Sharon Kinsella -- our beloved manager of volunteer services -- about "one day in the life of a volunteer"...

Hi Sharon –

I just sent a friend of mine a note about what I’ve been up to lately.
Below are paragraphs from my email that talk about the AHS adoptathon.
My guess is working with volunteers must feel to AHS staff like herding cats.
I thought you might enjoy comparing what you planned for me to what actually happened!

Nancy H.

P.S. Job well done by you and the other AHS staff.

From: Nancy
Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2014 9:03 PM

Among other things, I’ve gone to the dogs. Yesterday I finished my assigned shifts for this weekend’s adoptathon at the Arizona Humane Society. Very tired but very satisfying.

Originally, my spousal unit Richard, our amigo Jerri, and I were assigned to be in charge of “traffic” at the Sunnyslope shelter.

Our initial volunteer orientation training did teach us the adoption process but we didn’t feel confident enough to be a solo “adoption specialist.”

Traffic responsibilities turned out to be directing and controlling the flow of people into the shelter to avoid congestion in the halls and to make sure people had as much time as they needed in “meet and greet” spaces with their potential new pet(s).

AHS ended up short on dog adoption volunteers for our first shift so I took the initiative, found myself a mentor, switched to become an adoption specialist, and introduced myself to each of my human customers as a “newbie adoption volunteer” who was still learning the ropes and needed to get a staff person to check me at the end to make sure I’d done my job correctly. People were very kind and patient. They chuckled when I told them I hadn’t brought my reading glasses because I thought I was going to be a traffic facilitator, there were a couple forms I was supposed to read aloud to them, and asked if they would be willing to read the forms aloud to themselves and I would comment as they went along to elaborate on key points. It was a true partnership experience!

Meanwhile, Richard and Jerri did “traffic plus.” “Plus” included escorting people to the cat and/or dog rooms to locate missing family members from whom they’d become separated, as well as directing people to the bathrooms and water fountain, solving any problem for which they could concoct a remedy, and referring to docents or staff any problems they couldn’t expeditiously fix.

One reason volunteering at AHS is so much fun is the organization truly empowers its volunteers to do whatever best serves the animals and human customers even if it’s something unique. The next time we talk, remind me to tell you about how I switched identities with a very tearful Chandler single mom who literally was dragged back into the shelter by her newly-adopted hound that was so powerful she didn’t have the strength to make it stop. She felt horrible about herself because she knew it would be impossible for her to keep the pooch and thought she was failing a worthy dog that was in desperate need of a home. I could see it was a terrible match from the get-go. I suggested a Plan B. She gave me her driver’s license so I could pretend to be her and return the dog she’d just adopted to Admissions. Meanwhile she took her 2 kids (a 6ish yr. old boy with tears streaming down his face and a very sad-looking 12ish year old girl who ultimately had a huge grin on her face) back to Adoptions to pick out another, wonderful, very friendly and easy-to-walk three-legged dog. In the end, everything turned out swell including for the dog she/I relinquished to Admissions and was later adopted by a family that was a perfect match.

The Friday shift was supposed to be noon – 4 pm but the crowds kept streaming in so we stayed until around 5:30 or 6. Yesterday we stuck to the 12-4 schedule. Today we went swimming and then took a very long nap. Being out in the heat, running around at the shelter at this time of year, really took the stuffing out me. It felt kind of good that Richard wasn’t a live wire at the end, either! At AHS I also work at their Petique at the Biltmore and I’ve fostered several dozen dogs over the years. I foster mainly adult dogs for a variety of ailments but my specialties have evolved to become wound care and orthopedic surgical recovery. Who’d have predicted that one?