@Bunny Rosenberg
Volunteer & Foster Care Manager
Muttville Senior Dog Rescue
San Francisco, CA
Tell us a little about you and your history in animal welfare.
BR: I am the Volunteer & Foster Care Manager at Muttville Senior Dog Rescue in San Francisco, California. In this role, I oversee the volunteer program and send dogs into temporary foster homes while they await adoption. I have also chaired Muttville’s annual fundraising gala Senior Prom for the past three years. You can find me around Muttville simultaneously scheduling a volunteer on the calendar, answering an email, and dressing up a pekingese in the season's latest fashions.
Prior to Muttville, I worked as a Media Curation Analyst for JPMorgan Chase & Co. While working there in 2012, I adopted Muttville dog #1541, a chubby chihuahua I named Hemingway. I fell in love with Muttville's mission, the dedication of the organization's staff and volunteers, and of course the dogs. In late 2012 I began volunteering at Muttville founder Sherri Franklin's home, soon including an evening shift at HQ, then was sneakily talked into fostering. I made the transition to full-time employee in May 2014.
I received a BA in English and film studies magna cum laude at University of the Pacific and an MA in International Studies with highest distinctions from Concordia University. I was recently re-appointed as a Commissioner on the Commission of Animal Control and Welfare where I'll serve a minimum two year term.
What's an accomplishment that you are most proud of in your career?
BR: Several years ago, six months before our huge annual fundraising gala, we suddenly lost all of our event support and had to start from scratch! We had no game plan in place and needed to figure out how to organize our largest fundraising event of the year for 400 attendees.
It was completely crazy! We had no date, no venue, no vendors. We came together as a team and I stepped in to partner with our executive and development team to help in the event planning and execution. It was inspiring how much we all worked together! We were all completely new to this and we were determined to not only make it our most successful gala yet, but to make it FUN to plan. And it was!!
It was really incredible that our CEO and COO trusted us and gave us the freedom to try something new. That's why I love working for Muttville—we are always willing to experiment, test, and improve. Now I'm in my third year as the event planner and we continue to raise more money every year! It's been something completely unexpected and satisfying in my career.
Name something related to shelters and animal welfare that you are super passionate about and want others to learn about?
BR: I'm super, super passionate about maintaining a "make it work" atmosphere. I sometimes see organizations get held back by rules and structure and think it's important to stay flexible. Protocols and guidelines are important, but I think an organization should never let themselves be held back by self-imposed rules. I try to get to yes as often as I can.
Some of my best volunteers are people who emailed me out of the blue and couldn't attend an orientation—so we did something 1-1 instead and bent our own rules! One of my favorite adoption stories happened because we let someone have an overnight "trial" with a dog—we don't do adoption trials, but we bent our own rules and made it work because it felt right! Sometimes you have to go with your intuition and ignore the rules.
Tell us something about yourself people might be surprised to learn
BR: I have an identical twin sister!
Who is your animal welfare crush?
BR: Adam Parascandola, Director, Animal Protection and Crisis Response of Humane Society International. When my husband and I first decided we wanted a dog in 2012 (our first as adults!), I was hesitant about rescuing for all the cliched reasons: that shelter animals are "damaged goods" and there has to be something wrong with them. Then, that holiday season the Humane Society put out a video of Billy the chihuahua, a teeny tiny guy who was rescued from a puppy mill (you've got to watch the video below if you haven't!). It completely opened my eyes to what buying a dog was actually supporting and showed me how sweet and loving shelter animals were. It changed my mind and my life! We rescued our first senior chihuahua after watching that video and I started volunteering at Muttville. Soon, I started volunteering even more and then a position opened up for a full-time role on the team! Watching Adam and Billy changed the trajectory of my career and inspired me to do more for animal welfare and senior dogs.
Visit Muttville.org
Thanks for the interview, Bunny and all of the work you do at Muttville to help senior dogs find homes!
Watch the video that changed Bunny's perspective on adopting:
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