Working Like A Dog: Students volunteer at animal shelters and boarding facilities to gain experience or simply offer assistance

Caroline Eason

Other teenagers may not be able to stomach observing a surgery, even that of an animal, but senior Caroline Eason sees everything from neuters to hematoma removals when she sits in on surgeries at Great Plains SPCA animal shelter where she volunteers about twice a week. 

While it’s not the typical job of animal shelter volunteers to watch surgeries, Eason’s interest in helping animals and possibly becoming a veterinarian herself led her to her to watching the operations when she’s not walking, training or grooming the animals.

She first asked the workers at the shelter’s Vet Center if she could poke her head in during the operations over a month ago, and has been watching them ever since. On her first day sitting in the operating room, Eason saw five spays and eight neuters.

“They gave me a stool in case I passed out and said everyone did watching their first one,” Eason said. “But I was totally fine, I thought I would be squeamish but I wasn’t.”

Observing the animal doctors, Eason now knows how to work animal respirator machines and many types of sutures and blades, along with the basic anatomy of cats and dogs. She hopes that this knowledge about the basis of animal surgery will help her if she becomes a veterinarian. Plus, she hasn’t passed out during any of them — a good sign she can handle the blood.

Eason’s considering starting the pre-vet track next year and seeing where it takes her. She thinks of her volunteering as an internship to give her some background knowledge and help her decide if veterinary work is the passion she wants to pursue.

“Hopefully [my love of animals] will determine the path of my life,” Eason said. “I know that vets have the highest depression rate, so hopefully I’ll find a way to make it fulfilling, and I think shelter med could be an interesting career because you get to do every kind of surgery.”

Shannon Burns

During her first day volunteering at Wayside Waifs, then-freshman Shannon Burns was overwhelmed with the with the cluster of dogs surrounding her as she took a brown and white border collie mix out on a walk. When she came back inside for their cuddle time, the dog — named Jamie — did something she hadn’t expected: he curled up next to her and rested his head in her lap.

“That was the moment when I was like, ‘This is something I wanna do. I love this so much, he trusts me as a volunteer, someone he’s never met,’” Burns said. “I’ve never forgotten him doing that.”

Now, three years later as a senior, Burns volunteers at least once a week at Wayside Waifs and co-heads the SHARE project for the shelter with senior Megan Stopperan.

When she volunteers at Wayside Waifs, Burns takes dogs outside for walks and then cuddles with them to give them some human interaction. She loves socializing with shy dogs to make them comfortable around humans so they have a better chance at getting adopted. 

“Once I get to walk them and they get more comfortable with me, that’s fulfilling to me because I see them come out of their shells, so I really enjoy seeing that part play out,” Burns said.

For her monthly trips to the animal shelter with her SHARE project, Burns brings volunteers to fold towels and organize for a few hours. Last month, they hung up the Valentine’s Day cards of people who made donations to Wayside Waifs. This month, they toured the Wayside Waifs campus and helped feed the dogs treats.

“I feel like the SHARE project has kind of expanded my experience with helping animals past just me volunteering there myself,” Burns said. “Now I’m able to share my love of animals with everyone.”

Erin Hansen

Junior Erin Hanson first began working at On the Ball, a doggy daycare and boarding facility, to spend time around cute animals and make some extra cash. But since she started almost a year ago, the job’s given her relationships between countless dogs and their owners, but most importantly, it’s given her experience in the career she plans to pursue — an ecologist.

Hansen works at the daycare about three days a week, and what she does every day varies. Sometimes it’s grooming dogs, and sometimes it’s preparing meals in the boarding room or being a “dog-tender” and chaperoning the pets.

“I’ve always loved working with animals,” Hansen said. “I really wanted a job that I could work with animals ‘cause it’s always come very easy to me and very natural, so when I heard that somewhere was so close that I could be around animals 24/7, I jumped at the opportunity.”

She loves interacting with both the dogs and their owners, and forms bonds with them when she debriefs the owners on how their pet did that day. She’s fallen in love with some of her regular customers: a Golden Retriever named Lombardi and a German Shepherd named Barkevious that half-tackles her every five months when he comes in.

After college, she plans on using her passion for animals to work with wildlife, either at a national park or as an in-the-field lab scientist to test the environment and combat deforestation.

“Being able to find a job’s given me experience in the real world working with animals and kind of gives me a taste of how out of high school it’ll be,” Hansen said.