Volunteer Opportunities

Thank you for your interest in volunteering with us! The Animal Service Center Volunteer Program is vital to our operation, and our volunteers are making an impact in many areas. Today, volunteers assist in the care of dogs and cats housed in our shelter, help place them in loving homes, and provide support for administrative programs.

General Guidelines

• Volunteers must be 16 years of age or older.
• If you are a high school student seeking to fulfill community service hours, please see the instructions about our Student Service Learning program at the bottom of this page.
• If you are looking to complete court-ordered community service, this is not the correct application and process. Please call our front office at 891-2950 to inquire about proper procedure on community service.
• We ask that volunteers commit to a minimum of 2 hours per week/8 hours per month of volunteer time for a minimum of 6 months
• Parents with children under 16 can contact us to find out about ways younger children can help the shelter.

Steps to Becoming a Volunteer
We rely on our wonderful volunteers to help with many aspects of our shelter operations and we could not do all the good things we do without them. If you are considering becoming part of our team, please follow the steps below.

• Determine what type of volunteer position you might like to volunteer for. (Review our volunteer opportunities below).
• Complete a Volunteer Application (PDF) and submit it to sheltervolunteer@talgov.com or fax it, ATTN: Volunteer Coordinator, to (850) 891-2977.
• Complete a volunteer interview. After reviewing your volunteer application, our volunteer coordinator will contact you to make arrangements to complete the volunteer interview.
• Attend New Volunteer Orientation. Following your volunteer interview, you will be scheduled for our New Volunteer Orientation. Orientations occur multiple times throughout the month to fit a variety of schedules. During this orientation, we will review both dog and cat handling.
• Make a Difference

Types of Volunteer Opportunities:

Volunteer Animal Care Associates: There's only one thing better than seeing pets leave the shelter with their new families - helping to make it happen! If you enjoy working with people and would like to help secure loving homes for dogs and cats, consider becoming a Volunteer Animal Care Associate! Please note that a large portion of this position requires working in the kennel areas. As an Animal Care Associate, you'll get to:

• Assist the public in meeting our animals and answering questions about adoptable animals.
• Take dogs for walks in neighboring Tom Brown Park
• Provide individual 20-30minute cuddle/play sessions for cats.
• Assist with feeding and cleaning as needed.
• Bathe animals as needed.

Shelter Administrative Associate: Are you a type-A personality with strengths in filing and organization? Then we have the job for you! As a Shelter Administrative Associate you will get to:

• Assist our customer service staff with filing, word processing, and directing customers.
• Assist with maintenance of our Adoption Wish Book and contact potential adopters when matches are found.

Animal Service Center Greeter: Are you an outgoing person that loves working with people as much as you love working with animals? Consider becoming an ASC Greeter. As an Animal Service Center Greeter you will get to:

• Welcome the public to the shelter and answer general questions.
• Direct guests to the kennels and/or appropriate staff.

Animal Photographer: Do you have a DSLR camera, a good eye for photos, and a lot of patience? Studies have shown that a great picture on our website can be the key to getting a pet adopted. As an Animal Photographer you will get to:

• Take awesome animal photos with your own DSLR camera
• Upload photos to our database for posting on our website

Special Events Volunteer: Want to help out, but can't make a regular weekly commitment? Consider becoming one of our Special Events Volunteers. As a Special Events Volunteer, you'll get to:

• Participate in Adoption Outreach Booths throughout the Community
• Participate in special event and fund-raising activities such as:
  • Adopt-A-Thons
  • Tails and Trails - 5k, 10k, and 1 mile fun runs (annually)
  • Low-Cost Rabies Vaccination Clinics
  • Howl-At-The-Moon

Foster Parent: Do you want to make a big impact but don't have time to commit weekly Consider becoming a foster parent. For more information about our Foster Program, visit our Foster Page.

Veterinary Volunteer Program: The veterinary volunteer program was designed for pre-veterinary students and other individuals with an interest in the veterinary profession. The goal is to allow hands-on experience in the animal field. As a Veterinary Volunteer you will get to assist our veterinary team with our in-house surgery and medical program. Primary duties include:

• Surgical pack sterilization and preparation
• Laundering the surgical linens
• Assisting with patient preparation for and recovery from surgery.
• Other duties may include assisting with animal exams, diagnostics and treatments.
  • Due to the nature of shelter medicine, the exact activities will vary by season

Student Service Learning
We accept high school students, on a limited basis, who are seeking to fulfill a graduation requirement for community service hours. Policies for student volunteers in the Service Learning program include:

• Volunteers must be 16 years of age or older.
• Volunteers must commit to a regular schedule with a minimum of 2 hours per week.
• Students must be mature, dependable, ambitious, able to follow instructions and able to work independently on assigned tasks.
• Students with a negative attitude, careless work ethic, inability to follow instructions or unreliability will be terminated from the program.