Amanda

I am an active volunteer at the Peninsula Regional Animal Shelter (PRAS), which is a local shelter that services four counties in the Hampton Roads, VA area. Today I volunteered with dog walking/enrichment activities and snapped some pictures of the dogs for the adoption website. Capturing a dog’s personality through pictures greatly increases his chances of “catching the eye of a potential adopter” and ultimately, in him being adopted. I also regularly assist with teaching the dog-handler course (requirement for all new volunteers before they are allowed to walk dogs) and fostering animals. My dog trainer experience allows me to have the biggest impact by fostering dogs with behavior challenges and working on behavior modification until they are suitable to be adopted out. Fostering dogs that have been returned multiple times for “aggression”, “separation anxiety”, or other untrained dog behaviors, and seeing them get adopted and stay adopted, is the most rewarding part of volunteering.