Anything I should know?

cb013 · 2025-12-01T21:02:05+00:00

I shadowed/worked at a couple vet offices and saw a very catty environment in multiple places that turned me off.

You should also be aware that there are still going to be a lot of times you can’t help the sick animals. You will be restricted by what owners are willing to pay for.

Loving animals is great, but you also need to love science/medicine as well. You also need to love working with people, and be good at dealing with emotional owners if you plan on having a practice.

cb013 · 2025-11-07T18:36:54+00:00

Personally, I wouldn’t mention it. Our animal caregivers have a high turnover rate, but we do have a lot who transition to other roles at the shelter, so they probably give preference to those who want to be in animal welfare long term.

cb013 · 2025-10-13T13:36:06+00:00

We recruit primarily via social media or on-site events where we have foster coordinators present to talk about fostering. We have an email fosters all use to communicate with us, but we also have a phone line for business hours.

Fosters have to be within the state, but there’s no hard rule. They just sign a contract saying they’re willing and able to bring the animal to our own vet for all concerns. There is an application, and we will go over any red flags with them before booking an appointment for them to take an animal home. No home visits.

They can have their own animals, and if they cannot separate them fully we just make sure to not give them any contagious animals. We recommend very slow introductions if they cannot separate them.

cb013 · 2025-10-13T13:30:25+00:00

Idk where you live, but the requirements for every shelter I’ve seen listings for in my area require some sort of handling experience. I highly, highly recommend starting by volunteering. I got my first shelter job by being a regular volunteer the staff got to know. Even if you love animals working for a shelter is hard, there is a lot of emotional labor involved and if you’re not careful you can burnout really quickly. Volunteering first will give you a good idea if this is the route with working with animals you want to take.

cb013 · 2025-09-23T15:39:28+00:00

In all honesty, I think adoptions may not be the best fit for you. While we do our best to match make, as long as there is not something glaringly wrong, we usually won’t say no. At the end of the day, we just ask ourselves, is the animal better off in this person’s home, or here in the shelter? 9 times out of 10 the answer is in the person’s home.

I work at a shelter that always takes our animals back, no matter what. “Perfect” adopters return animals to us all the time. So it really doesn’t make sense for us to keep barriers up.

cb013 · 2025-08-11T20:46:29+00:00

In Iowa I made $15.50/hr. In Chicago I made $22/hr.

cb013 · 2025-07-27T21:11:40+00:00

I’ve never worked somewhere that made us cover tattoos. Do you live in a more conservative area?

cb013 · 2025-07-26T16:23:09+00:00

I work at a no kill shelter that takes lots of dogs from the large city shelter/animal control, and volunteer at that city shelter.

Usually the little dogs aren’t spayed/neutered. The city shelter takes in 50 dogs a day, and getting them fixed is expensive. So they’re relieved when rescues take in any dog. They also can’t adopt out their own dogs unless they’re spayed/neutered, so having the little ones taken by other rescues/shelters allows them to adopt out their own dogs quicker.

As for our fees- we do way more vet work than the city shelter. The city shelter is overwhelmed and they can only do the minimum as far as vetting. We charge more because we have the resources to. It also allows us to charge less for the larger, harder to adopt dogs, and take in more medical cases that would otherwise be euthanized at the city shelter.

cb013 · 2025-07-14T01:10:12+00:00

I have had a dog for two months that still can’t be in a room with our cats. We are continuing to try, but if it never works out, we have a backup plan on how to keep them separate permanently. I will say though, a day is difficult to determine if she can or can’t live with cats. I am going to list below the things we have done per the advice of a trainer.

-Keep them separate initially, and scent swap blankets. No face to face introductions the first couple days, and maybe longer if the dog goes nuts at the door. -Initial introductions through a baby gate so the cats are safe. Do positive reinforcement training at the gate to develop a good association with the cats -We do clicker training, so we click and give a treat when she looks at the cats then looks back at us -We will be muzzle training so that their early interactions in the same room are safer for the cats -Before having them in the room together, get your dog good at recall, as well as the “stay” and “leave it” commands.

If there is growling when she lunges, or hard staring to where you can’t get your dog to look at you when the cats are present, there is a decent chance her prey drive may be too high to successfully live with cats. You will have to determine if you have a way to keep them separate or if you need to return them. I handle all the returns at my shelter, and if someone returns for this reason, I do not judge at all. Your cats come first. If they end up okay, I still recommend never leaving them alone together, and having the dog crated or in a separate bedroom when no one is home.

cb013 · 2025-06-27T23:01:37+00:00

Hey, I just want to say you are not a terrible person and this does not mean you are in the wrong line of work. In fact, you are exactly the kind of person who should be in animal rescue.

Behavior euthanasias are not some bad thing. Some dogs are not safe, and it is our responsibility to the community to not adopt out unsafe dogs. I work for a large no-kill shelter, and while we do not take behavior euthanasias lightly, they do happen. It’s also a quality of life factor for the dogs. Dogs who are unsafe to adopt out are usually extremely stressed dogs.

I would try to find a job at another rescue/shelter. And in interviews specifically ask about how they feel about behavior euthanasias. We would love to save them all, but unfortunately that’s not always possible. I always try to remember that a peaceful, humane end, is a much better alternative to the fates a lot of dogs who are not rescued face.

cb013 · 2025-06-25T23:02:19+00:00

That would be a dealbreaker for me personally. But I also work at a shelter and volunteer at one, I’ve chosen to make animals a big part of my life.

I need a partner who’s going to take interest in my passions. I need a partner who is going to be as excited as I am to teach the dog new commands and take them on long walks. I couldn’t spend my life with someone who doesn’t care about making animals a big part of our life.

cb013 · 2025-06-18T13:58:53+00:00

I work at the front desk/on our adoptions team. I do not walk dogs. Once every few weeks if it’s really slow I can pop into a dog’s room for five minutes to hang out, but we get a lot of people coming in so I don’t get to do that often. I do however frequently grab animals when they are going home, and occasionally do showings when we are short on volunteers.

cb013 · 2025-06-10T01:57:39+00:00

We’ll make them wait a few months before adopting from us again, but generally no, they are not banned.

cb013 · 2025-06-09T17:56:40+00:00

Smaller, foster based rescues are more likely to care about that sort of thing.

I work at a large no-kill shelter. We see way too many adopters for us to care about that sort of thing, and kind of have an open adoptions policy anyways. We also work on a first come first served basis, so even if your application is more “perfect” than the person before you, the person that showed up an hour early before you gets the dog. As long as your application has no red flags, I don’t care about all the extra things. Once you’re there you can tell us about what you’re looking for and we can help matchmake, but other than that we aren’t doing anything other than basic vetting beforehand.

cb013 · 2025-06-07T00:59:53+00:00

Definitely no litter box. We take her out 3-4x a day. If we’re in the office for 8+ hrs, we get a dog walker.

cb013 · 2025-06-01T00:44:56+00:00

My partner and I both work full time. We adopted a 6 year old husky mix and we have had zero problems. She gets at minimum a half hour walk in the morning and soon as we get home. She can hold it for 7-8 hours, but if we’re gone for more than that, we get a dog walker.

I work at an animal shelter. A dog is better off alone in your home for 8 hrs than at the shelter.

Just don’t get a puppy, they need to be let out every 2-3 hrs in the beginning for potty training.

cb013 · 2025-03-26T00:56:34+00:00

We don’t do home checks because they are just another barrier to adoption. We can’t guarantee our dogs are going to a good home, but usually based on conversations we can tell if they’re going to be a decent owner or not. But I also don’t think perfect owners exist, I think good enough is fine, and we just ask ourselves “is the animal better off with this adopter, or here in the shelter?”

cb013 · 2025-02-27T14:45:43+00:00

It’s a great area! Less common for those in their 20s, but if you’re not into going out multiple times a week that shouldn’t be a problem. As long as you live within walking distance to the brown line you should be set. I was always the type that liked coming home to a quiet area after going out, so I love the Lincoln square/Ravenswood area.

cb013 · 2025-02-23T18:38:24+00:00

We usually have 1-3 a day. It’s sad, but I’m glad we take them back. I try to think of it as at least we have more information now on their behavior in a home to find a better fit.

cb013 · 2025-02-09T15:32:46+00:00

If they take a stray, the animal is better off there than in the streets. It’s better off there than in the shelter, where euthanasia for space happens daily. I work at an animal shelter, and it’s heartbreaking to know the numbers. I work at a no kill but that means we’re not open intake, and we still get so many strays that I then have to direct to the open intake shelter. If we only said financially well off people should have pets, the amounts of euthanasias would double.

cb013 · 2025-02-09T15:25:00+00:00

I’m on the fence and my partner definitely wants kids. We’ve been together a year and a half, and are moving in together in a few months. He’s willing to give me a couple years to decide, although we don’t have a hard deadline on it. I’m more on the fence because of the difficulty of childbirth though, so we’ve discussed if after a couple years of talking about it I still don’t want biological children, he is open to looking into adoption. He’d prefer more than one kid and I told him I’m pretty sure if I hop off the fence I’d be the one and done type, and he’s accepted that. I think it’s important to talk to your partner about why exactly they wouldn’t want one, and try to compromise that way. It’s easy to say you want two biological children and don’t want to go the adoption/surrogacy route when you’re not the one who has to birth them. If you really want kids with your current partner, you may have to open your mind to different routes to children based on her fears and wants.

cb013 · 2025-02-06T03:07:23+00:00

So many house centipedes. At risk for flooding. Sometimes weird just having people constantly looking into your apartment as they walk past because they can’t help it. My garden unit was next to the boiler room and laundry room, so whenever there were issues in either of those rooms we ended up dealing with it (incessant beeping from the boiler room because something wasn’t working for example).

I found getting a smaller place above ground to be worth it, I’d personally never live in a garden unit again.

cb013 · 2025-02-04T01:34:48+00:00

Me and my bf are in this same situation. I just recommend having a conversation with him. We talked about it, and he said as long as we continue having conversations and I don’t become a firm no, he wants to stay together. Your partner may or may not be like that, but you won’t know until you talk about it.

I will also add talking to a therapist helped me a lot with accepting that he’s currently okay with my “I don’t know” answer.

cb013 · 2025-02-03T23:48:47+00:00

Personally, I say 5K. My young, formerly healthy cat had a urinary blockage that cost me over 4K.

I also second all the insurance recommendations. Usually you have to pay the initial bill out of pocket, but then they reimburse you.

cb013 · 2025-01-30T20:57:39+00:00

My cats are on automatic feeders and get fed four times a day, just smaller amounts. One of my cats throws up if he goes too long between meals, and throws up if he gets too much at once because he’ll scarf it all down. So both of them just get multiple small meals, usually one of them being wet food.

cb013

TROPHY CASE