Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi all! I'm new to the forum and wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. I just joined The Babinski Foundation and have taken on the Marketing Manager and Volunteer Coordinator role! Our shelter does not have an established volunteer program just yet so I'm making this a primary focus. 

One of the ideas I came across was to do a Dog Trotters program that encourages our local runners to get out with our active pups on our spacious 365 acre property! 

Have any of you had experience developing a program such as this? What worked for you/what didn't? Did you use social media (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, etc) to showcase the program? 

Thanks so much for any and all input! 

This will be such a worthwhile program to set up.  It will be healthy for the the dogs and the runners.

I've never set anything like this up but you just the mention of your 365 spacious acres running with a dog will have an appeal for the outdoorsy type animal lovers.  Here are a couple ideas:

1.  There are businesses owners and corporations who encourage their employees to get involved volunteering.  Some companies even pay their employees to volunteer, and some don't.  You may end up with volunteers for other projects instead but here's a link that might help you. https://fortune.com/2016/03/21/companies-that-offer-paid-time-off-to-volunteer/   There may be folks who can't run the dogs but would enjoy walking the dogs instead of jogging with them.

2.  Getting word out on social media will certainly help, but also ask your local newspaper and radio station if they would help get the word out to their readers and listeners.  They would probably love to help you.

3.  Maybe the veterinarian you use would put a flyer out and also something on their social media pages, their website, or blog, and monthly newsletter if they have one?

4.  Maybe both pet related businesses and non pet related businesses would help get the word out to their customers by social media, their website or blog, and monthly newsletter if they have one.  Maybe they would put a flyer in their store (if they have a store front).

5.  Of course if Babinski Foundation has a blog, website or newsletter mention this here too.

6.  If there is a sporting goods store or an area where joggers shop they could help the same way as the above mentioned businesses.

I wish you the best with this and am looking forward to hearing how it goes.

I really like your idea of promoting the event by using a flyer or such at sporting goods or maybe event fitness centers! Thanks so much for the tips! 

We have a volunteer-run program called Ruff Runners that does something similar. Christy (@ChristyH) has been running the program for a few years and may be able to give you some ideas!

There's information on some walking groups in here: https://www.maddiesfund.org/assets/documents/Institute/Short-Term%20Dog%20Foster%20Manual.pdf

Hi! I started a program at Pima Animal Care in Tucson called Tucson Ruff Runners about 5 years ago. We have experienced dog handling volunteers at the shelter who facilitate the program which operates a bit like a guest walk/run. We started off as a running program but we ended up with more people who really wanted to walk dogs more than run, which is fine. Our summers are incredibly hot and running is not even a consideration between May-Sep.

I first reached out to the RuffTail Runners out at APA! who helped me enormously. They require their 'runners' to be trained through their program and can graduate to certain levels of dogs (based on behaviors/handling difficulty). They have someone at the shelter at all times who can sign out the dogs. The runners get their own dogs in/out of the kennels.

That wasn't really an option for us in Tucson so we set out to do this 2x a week. We have a Facebook page and we post an "Event" 2x a week. People must sign up in advance so we know how many are coming and that we have enough volunteers to pull dogs for our guests. Guests are briefed with our safety rules the first time they come out and also sign a waiver that is required by our shelter. Then we bring the dogs out for them, they walk or run the dog according to our guidelines, and bring the dog back to us. Only experienced volunteers are kenneling/un-kenneling the dogs so it reduces safety risks and attracts people who can't commit enough hours to become a regular volunteer, or might find it too difficult to volunteer inside the shelter.

It has been a very popular program and it has brought us some very strong, long-term volunteers over the years. It also gets more dogs out of their kennels and ultimately calmer and more adoptable. We do special events like dog washes, 5k runs, a pet themed marathon aid station, host special groups from businesses/military, fundraisers to build play yards etc. for the shelter.

Things to consider:

• Temperature guidelines for running dogs, health risks for some dogs (prone to CCL tears, overheating, too young/still developing etc.).
• Behavior: running can tip an iffy dog into a state of overstimulation so it's important to know which dogs can run, who can just walk, and who are better to only be handled by experienced volunteers.
• It's not hard to mistake a dog that pulls for one who really needs to run, when in fact the dog is pulling from anxiety/stress and running may reinforce the dog's stress and negative association with running/walking/being on leash etc (I have an alumni at home that fits into this category and in retrospect, I would never have put her through 4.5 months of running/walking in an environment that clearly caused a lot of stress).

We worked with our shelter administration and vet to establish guidelines and we know our population well before sending them out. PACC has 200-240 walkable dogs on any given day so that is not an easy task but having regular walkers on the team made the difference. We tend to focus on our longer stay dogs when possible.

https://www.facebook.com/TucsonRuffRunners/ is our facebook page which I have admittedly neglected for some time, but you can get some info there and an idea of how things work. Feel free to contact me directly if you would like more info and good luck!

Christy

This information is incredible and I am so appreciative!!! Thank you for taking the time to provide valuable feedback and ideas. I will certainly be contacting you again as I get the Volunteer Program up and running. 

Hi I’m new to this forum but this is a topic I have spent a good deal of time on. I started a Trotters program in February. I reached out to several shelters that I had seen have a running program of their own or monthly running events. With information from these facilities and other research I developed a protocol for our program encompassing both the training for the human Trotters and selection of the four legged Trotters. As of August we have 7 approved Trotters that have run 17 dogs over 1100 miles. The benefits to the dogs, behaviorally and emotionally are noticeable. I have run a local 5k with our founding member, Brooklyn, and we came in second in our division. We have connected with our local running club and are doing a monthly group run and will look to host a 5k in the spring with them and a local semi-pro baseball team. We will be hosting a Halloween zombie run for the community. The support for programs like this is quite encouraging. The possibilities are endless. I’d love to hear more on this subject so we can continue to grow our program and would be happy to share what we have learned as well