How You Can Help Your Shelter This Summer

While the kids are out of school, it’s a great opportunity to become active with a local rescue organization. This could be a great time to foster a dog, teaching the kids many lessons about responsibility and caring for others. You can also organize food donations. In this article, we’ll explore how you can make a difference to your local shelter this month.

Visit a Shelter

The first step to making a difference for your local shelter is to visit one in person. Your kids probably know that some dogs and cats live in shelters looking for a new home. But reading or hearing about it isn’t the same as seeing it for yourself. School-age children are old enough to tour a local shelter to see for themselves how many great pets need homes. Visiting a shelter is a great opportunity for them to understand the responsibility of pet ownership. It also teaches them about compassion for these animals who are in need of homes. And they may even feel compelled to spread the word to their friends, encouraging a new generation of pet owners to look into adoption first.

Organize Food Donations

Your local shelter is run by volunteers and relies heavily on donations. While Christmas may be the most popular time to think about making a difference for others, shelter pets need food all year round. Dog and cat owners already have to buy pet food for their own animals. Kind-hearted people are often willing to share with less fortunate dogs, and that’s how our shelter and foster dogs get through hard times.

To organize a food donation, you can make fliers and activate your neighborhood. You could even organize a barbeque or set up a lemonade stand and accept pet food in lieu of money. You could also collect coupons allowing you to purchase more pet food for the same price and donate the extras to your shelter.

Pet or Walk Shelter Animals

Many shelters are understaffed or low on funds. They’re always looking for more helpers to socialize the animals or take dogs outside to play. You and your children can volunteer to do just that. Your contribution may make a shelter pet a little calmer around people and even help them find a forever home when the right person comes along. In the meantime, your visits will keep them happy and healthy.

Donating your time and caring for a shelter animal is also good for your soul. When you volunteer at a shelter, the pets will provide you with insights you may not have had otherwise. It feels good do something for someone else, and if you love animals, volunteering at the shelter is no hardship.

Foster a Dog                    

Fostering an animal is a great way to help your shelter. Many dogs will eventually find a home, but it doesn’t happen overnight. That’s where pet foster parents come into play. During the summer, kids can help with foster dogs and take over feeding and training responsibilities. If nothing else, your children can play with and pet a foster dog while they’re out of school.

Fostering a dog is a great way to figure out if your family is ready for a commitment of this magnitude. It also teaches your children a lot about responsibility and caring for someone other than themselves. You may be surprised how much thought they put into caring for this dog. However, it’s important to prepare them for the inevitable separation when the dog finds a new family. After all, being a foster pet parent is usually a temporary assignment.

Collect Donations

Your time and effort is valuable. But not everyone has the ability to volunteer long hours at the local shelter. Fortunately, you can still make a difference by collecting donations. You don’t have to have a lot of money to donate to make a difference. You can easily organize an event that helps collect donations in the community and donates the proceeds to the local shelter. Entrepreneurial-minded children can even run their own lemonade stand and donate those proceeds to the animal shelter. Every little bit helps.

There are many different ways to make a difference this summer. But even after school starts again, you can use your afternoons and weekends to become active with your local animal shelter. And when a friend is looking for a pet, you know where to send them: the shelter.