Animal Care and Control

Posted by Chris Campbell at Wednesday, March 04, 2009

When I considered offering up a little time to volunteer with animals, my first thought was SPCA. Although they do some great things, I'm glad I spoke to a friend who convinced me to go with SF Animal Care and Control. For one, when I went to SPCA to ask about volunteer opportunities, it appeared to be a bureaucratic nightmare. The folks working there were mildly robotic and everything seemed to be centered around rules. When I went to Animal Care & Control (next door), the people were much more down to earth. And where SPCA seems to take the "good" pets, Animal Care takes anything that comes through its doors, and treats all pets with great care.

I'll admit that I was initially turned off by the almost ten hours of training I had to go through before being permitted to spend time with the dogs. But man, after going through the whole process, there's little question that it's necessary. I'm pretty sure they do this more to weed out those who aren't serious about volunteering. As each class passed, more folks seemed to fall by the wayside.

After about six weeks of going through the courses, yesterday was my first day on my own. I took a few dogs for walks and once the rains came, just hung out in a few cages with a number of good pups. It's a sad place to be at times, but thankfully, most dogs do find their way into homes. And the people who work there do what they do for the love of it. They're obviously not paid well, despite doing a great service and having to endure a lot of very hard work, both physically and mentally.