Animal Welfare Professionals

I work at a shelter in Vegas that tends to have quite a high intake. Our summer numbers quickly rise above 700 animals.

How does your shelter or rescue staff come out of the shelter "survival mode"?  Between the high population numbers along with the heat, it's hard on everyone and im curious what other shelter staff members do to come out of this mode along with helping each other.

#PeopleManagement(includingVolunteerIntegration)

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Faith Gonzales
Foster Specialist
The Animal Foundation
Las Vegas NV
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I feel like our rescue staff work in survival mode all year long. Yes, summer seems to bring higher intake but we just have t been able to reduce intakes like we used to. It seems so simple to those I. Rescue to spay/neuter to eliminate these high numbers for for the outside world it's such a huge issue.  We try to support each other as much as possible and try to make our work day as supportive as possible.  Sometime the burn out is rough!   

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Laura Coan
Volunteer
Novastar Rescue
AR
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Good question! We have a farm and exotic animal sanctuary in south Florida and the heat is unbearable during the summer.  Many of the sanctuary animals are outside (horses, goats, pigs, cows, kangaroos, tortoises, etc) so working in the heat is a must. Our intake is very different than what you experience but yes intake is up during the summer. We are 100% volunteer run and unfortunately, many of our volunteers call off because of the heat, so it falls to me to care for the animals when they don't show up. We try to give incentives and thank you gifts, we have two buildings that are air conditioned and we provide a table and chairs to take breaks as well as water, gatorade, popsicles and snacks.  We do our best to keep an open line of communication and praise the volunteers for the work they do to help the animals. I am not sure what else we can do to help with burn out and heat fatigue. 

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Lisa Burn
Co-founder/VP
Farmhouse Animal & Nature Sanctuary
Myakka City, FL
https://farmhousesanctuary.org
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