Here’s the second installment of an individual’s quest to become an ACC volunteer. This person had previously reported on the first step of the journey for a volunteer applicant: the Orientation Meeting.
The ACC’s becoming-a-volunteer process has been, er, streamlined from months to weeks since it launched its “revamped” program in December 2010.
After 14 months an extraordinarily high attrition rate, the ACC announced it has figured out why volunteers are signing up but then never showing up. They have recently revamped their program yet again. Now it’s a “team based” approach.
My Interview
Having made it through the Volunteer Orientation Meeting, the next hurdle: my one-on-one interview at the ACC’s executive offices in downtown on Park Place.
Turns out it really wasn’t much of an interview, lasting only a few minutes.. The young woman I met with did most of the talking, explaining (as they did at the Orientation) what opportunities existed for volunteers at the shelter depending on my interests.
The interview would have lasted longer had I told them I was available during the week. That would have guaranteed me an interview with the Volunteer Coordinator herself. It appears that the VC is always on the lookout to recruit volunteers to work for her in the executive offices: filing papers, inputting data, etc.
Even if I were available during the week, I had no interest helping in the office. I wanted to be in the shelter as a dog volunteer.
At the end of my “interview,” they took my picture for my photo ID, and charged my credit card $25.
And then I had to go home and, at my leisure, complete the following “webinar” classes the ACC makes available on the internet for Dog Volunteers:
1) Dog Companion Level 1 – 1 hr 13 min webinar
2) Dog body language & Behavior – 1 hr webinar
3) Defensive Handling & Techniques for dogs – 33 min webinar
4) General Medical Training – 2 hr 17 min webinar
I had heard from other people that these webinars are so simple-minded that you can pass the tests without actually viewing the webinars.
As an experiment, I shut down the dog behavior webinar halfway through the video. The test popped up on the screen. I took it … and passed with flying colors,
The webinars and the accompanying tests were a breeze.
Onto the next step: in-shelter training with a “team leader.”
IN SHELTER TRAINING
As explained to me, the in-shelter training (a 2-hour session) allows the ACC to decide whether I’m ready to work with the ACC adoption dogs on my own. If the team leader gives me the okay, I’ll receive a Volunteer Packet (t-shirt, ID, leash, and a certificate of completion). I was told that even if I’m allowed to walk dog by myself, I can only walk the dogs in adoptions, and not the dogs that were not viewable to the public.
Following the instructions that the ACC emailed me, I arrived at the shelter to meet my assigned team leader – a young woman. She explained that the ACC has only two team leaders for the Manhattan shelter. The other team leaders one likes to “flunk” volunteers and once bragged to her about making a volunteer cry. Lucky for me I was assigned the easy-going team leader.
Once our small group of potential volunteers had assembled, our team leader gave us a quick tour of the first floor of the shelter, but the only area where we were allowed to walk through and see was the backyard and the area (in the hallway) where the small dogs on hold are kept. The other areas like sick ward and animals on hold are strictly off-limits to almost all the volunteers. Our leader just pointed to various doors to let us know what was behind them. We weren’t allowed to see those animals.
We went upstairs to tour the dog adoptions wards, the laundry area, the volunteer room where bags/biscuits are kept, and the locker room. The team leader pointed to the door/area where the cats and rabbits are kept. We didn’t go there.
The team leader demonstrated how to take a dog from a cage. She showed us the approved walking route. We were told to fill out logs to place on their kennel card, and if there were any
medical issues like vomiting/diarrhea, etc to make a note of it on the medical log clipboard.
There were two other volunteers present when I was there. One was a young woman.
I was looking at the kennel cards in each ward to see which dogs had already been walked, and who hadn’t. I was making a mental note of which dog I needed to get to before I left. When I got to a dog named Bart, the young woman saw me looking at the dog’s kennel card and the first words out of her mouth were, “You don’t want to walk him, he is really bad. I had a bad experience with another dog, and I won’t walk any dog where people write on the card they jump or pull too much”
With friends like that, poor Bart didn’t need enemies.
I walked Bart, and to my surprise he was the most subdued dog of the day. That might’ve been because he was getting sick. He certainly had bloody diarrhea, which I dutifully noted on the medical log.
When I went to walk a dog named Buddy, the young volunteer walked by and shook her head: “Too strong,” she said.
Honestly her comments and behavior were so odd in the light of the fact that all the time I was there, I saw her walk only one dog. Okay, she might’ve been busy helping people who were interested in adopting a dog.
Look, I understand if she told me: “Be careful, he pulls and bites the leash, etc.” But for her to tell me not to take a dog out that hasn’t been out since yesterday seemed quite weird.
I saw the other volunteer take two Jack Russell terriers out for a walk, and she said they were sweet.
The Filth
I saw an ACC employee come by with little paper plates of wet/soft food for the Jack Russells. They had pooped in their small kennel (two dogs kept in a very tiny space). As the employee was making her rounds she just opened the door, didn’t clean up the poop. She just placed the plate of food right next to their poop. It was lying on top of a blanket, so all she actually had to do was remove the blanket.
So, I cleaned their kennel, and gave them a fresh blanket.
What I found most shocking was the level of FILTH. There is grimy, visible disgusting dirt everywhere. The place has trash bags in the hallways, dried and fresh pools of dog piss. Dirty floors, cages and walls, and everything in disarray. I’m not one to get grossed out easily, but the filth shocked me. I saw cockroaches crawling up the kennel walls. My team leader warned me never to leave any treat bags unsealed as the building has a severe rodent problem.
Some dog at the start of our shift had left a rather large pool of urine right by the elevator (where there were also two large black trash bags). People were walking though the puddle, tracking urine everywhere. When I left the shelter later that day, no one had cleaned up the mess. By then it had been spread everywhere and dried. The trash bags were still lying next to the elevator when I left, and dogs had repeated marked on them.
And then I got to thinking about the Medical webinar I had watched. The medical class stressed cleanliness, the importance of washing hands and how diseases are easily transmitted in a “dirty” environment.
But none of the ACC cleaning policies are followed in the shelter. Someone everyday needs to be cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. But the shelter looks like no one has touched it in years.
Dogs Aren’t Walked
When I first arrived that afternoon, I checked out the dogs in Adoptions. Of all the available dogs in adoptions only 4 had been walked. Dogs that were/are probably housebroken end up having to relieve themselves in their cages because there’s no one to walk them. Out of the 5 dogs I walked that day, 3 had soiled bedding and feces smeared in their kennel.
Why Volunteers Get Discouraged and Don’t Return
My in-shelter training session had been delayed because the ACC was “working on a new team based system.” As the Volunteer Coordinator wrote:
We recognize that a number of people attend the volunteer orientations but not all of them actually end up volunteering on a regular basis. We reached out to a number of the volunteers that have not been coming back to volunteer to better understand why they don’t return. Overwhelmingly the response has been that they are not comfortable coming in alone and would feel better if they had someone to work with. In response to their feedback and to encourage more people to volunteer on a consistent basis we are moving to a “Team” model.
The addition of our new Volunteer Liaison in Manhattan, and soon in Brooklyn, gives us the structure necessary to move toward this team model. We are exited [sic] to be able to expand our volunteer operations and continue to develop new opportunities for our volunteers and more importantly provide better care to our animals.
My team leader explained that this new structure will ensure that volunteers come back to the shelter.
The fact people don’t come back is clear to me: the ACC is an EXTREMELY poorly run hellhole.
The problem isn’t that volunteers are “feeling alone” or not knowing what to do. As with any job, a volunteers wants to feel that you are making a difference. But we’re operating in a system that’s broken. How can you be motivated to keep coming back and feel that you are making a meaningful difference when the employees don’t give a damn? What sort of kennel worker concerned about the welfare of the animals just places food in a cage totally ignoring the filth, and carrying on with their day?
I’ve been to the ASPCA (so clean you can eat off their floors), and Humane Society, and while I didn’t expect perfection at the ACC, the contrast between facilities and staff present is appalling.
Members of the Public Also Get Discouraged
The shelter lobby was PACKED with people when I arrived for my training that day. There was only ONE sign in sheet for everyone: (1) people surrendering animals or bringing in strays; (2) people wanting to adopt, and (3) people picking up animals they had already signed up to adopt. There is no one there in the lobby directing people, helping them, answering questions. You get a curt, “SIGN IN YOUR NAME AND WAIT TO BE CALLED.” I can’t blame people for giving up and leaving in frustration.
But the waiting room was the great equalizer: everybody had to sit in the waiting area for HOURS. One guy said he had been there for over 2 hours. He wanted to adopt a cat. He had gone upstairs to the adoptions ward, found a cat he liked, wrote down the cat’s ID number and came back down to the lobby to stand in line to adopt the cat.
I suggested that he go back upstairs and write down the ID numbers for several other cats he was interested in, not just one. I explained that someone might have already signed up to adopt that cat hours ago, but the shelter staff hadn’t gotten around to removing the cat from adoptions.
He thanked me and went back upstairs and wrote down more numbers of cats.
He was still there when I left.
I went through it a few months ago when I adopted an animal from the ACC. It took almost 6 hours.
Will I Be Allowed To Be an ACC Dog Volunteer?
My training session ended with: “We will contact you next week to see if you will be placed in rotation.” So, I still don’t know if I’m allowed to be an official dog volunteer.
I felt horribly guilty leaving as so many dogs hadn’t been walked. I tried to make sure at least they had clean cages/blankets before leaving.
I really can’t stress enough how appalling the level of filth is.
So, stay tuned whether I’ll be allowed to walk dogs by myself and, if so, what it’s like.
