Our First Visit; From the perspective of Katrina :)

After a long time organising our volunteer work we finally were able to go! When we got there the kennels were being cleaned and Boyd showed us around,as we did not get an induction course. He showed us the yellow kennels (up for adoption) the blue kennels (boarding dogs) the cat condos and where the animals are assessed for behavioural and quarantine when they are given into adoption. As there were already many volunteers and workers cleaning the dog kennels we were off to the cat condos to help clean them out. They were cleaned with a special disinfectant and new bowls, water, food and beds were given. We played with some of the cats but had to be careful which ones we socialised with eachother because of the cat flu. Some weren't allowed to be taken out due to being re-assesed behaviourally. The cats we played with were adorable, Misty and Mia. However, just my luck the cat jumped on top of the condos, being out of our reach and sight. We went next door to the other side of the cat dorms and asked Bailey for help! She said it was normal for Mia to do that and we were finally able to get her down. We cleaned the kitty litter boxes out and filled them up. We talked to Bailey about the shelter and working there. When the cats were done we got to play with dogs! Sophie walked Peedy and I walked Jetson (little did we know he was going to be one of our favourites). Being careful of the path to bring them because of the kennel cough outbreak. We played with them for a bit and continued walking dogs. After our short break we folded some laudnry and we just had enough time before we left to go and "socialise" some more cats :P

Tired and still buzzing from the excitment we ended our first day of volunteering at the Animal Welfare League Shelter in Kemps Creek.

My Third Visit

Unfortunatley Katrina was sick so she could not attend the third day :(
It went along well however it was very wet from the previous day's rain so when it came to walking puppies it was extremely difficult to stay clean, not that i minded :) Although there were several new puppies that wanted to play we could not put them into the doggie runs as it was muddy and the grass would be torn up.
It had started to rain later in the day so i actually had to walk them around the kennels and once that was finnished I started to hang out with the cats/kittens which were conveniently indoors.
On a sadder note talking to one of the other volunteers i was informed that one of the dogs i had walked the week before had been put down.
'Jimmy' was thought to have not liked being caged and it drove him to get a bit nippy, leading to aggression which could not be tamed in the situation he was in. This gave me a perspective of what happens on a darker note when dogs do not get adopted and made the job that i do that much more important to me.
To conclude i shall add some photos of some of the new dogs arriving at the kemps creek shelter and ofcourse Jimmy, may he rest in peace <3
Soph.
<--Jimmy
Gael -->







Oh and our little friend Misty was adopted!!!
Layla -->

Mishka

Well as mentioned in the previous posts i was attempting to convince my mum to adopt Shirley, however, to my surprise we came to an agreement and Shirley (Mishka) was adopted! By us!
Turns out i can help AWL in more ways than one.
My parents are already in love with her and she loves her new home :)
Love From Sophie & Mishka

Our Second Visit

We arrived super early today to start our volunteer work and were rewarded by starting with dog kennel cleaning first. We had to scoop the poop, disinfect the kennels and then hose and sweep whilst feeding the eager dogs kept on the other side of the cage.
We then started walking the dogs, the ones who aren't sick with kennel cough are supposed to be walked first followed by the sick ones. Dogs are constantly coming and going from the shelter so we've already made twice as many friends as we had last week, a nice little X Border Collie named Shirley being my favourite whilst the Staffy Cross named Jetson was Katrina's favourite.
We decided we'd pay our favourite Cats a visit as well and were surprised when we discovered there had been some new adorable kittens brought in. We introduced ourselves to all the new inmates and caught up with our old buddies from last week as well.
As a finale Katrina and I brought out a few puppies and decided we'd play with them in the pen, using the open environment to show my mum what a beautiful puppy Shirley is, lets hope she falls for the puppy as well ;)
I honestly didn't think volunteer work could be this fun and entertaining, which shows we picked the right thing to do, which also gives to us in return. I've learnt so much in the last two visits and hope to continue learning in the future visits.

Our First Visit

I'm a tad late at updating due to my studious activities during the last few weeks but i am catching up on my posts now :)
Our first day of volunteering was amazing!
We started off with cleaning out the cat play pens whilst we had the cats socialising with each other and us. This took up the majority of our day as there was much to do like cleaning and refilling the litter boxes and spraying down the enclosures due to the cat flu going around. We then moved on to talking several of the dogs for walks and playing with them inside what are knows as "runs" where the dogs are let of the leash and get one on one play time.
As a volunteer we were given the freedom of when to have a break and what tasks we would like to complete. The staff there extremely friendly and very helpful to the newbies on their first d
ay.
In general both Katrina and myself had a great time volunteering over there and plan to keep volunteering even after the leadership program has been completed.

The Many Complications

So, we've taken a while to organise it but our volunteer program is almost set!
We will be going to the Animal Welfare League's shelter in Kemps Creek and volunteering with them on the weekends. Such activities may include cleaning the animals facilities, washing them, playing with them and doing any duties which are set by our supervisors.
Bianca, Katrina and myself are very adament in helping these animals that may have been abused or abandones earlier on in life and hope we can make a difference.
More posts shortly ;)
- Sophie