# Taking Shelter Dogs Off Premesis-Thoughts?



## Gharrissc (May 19, 2012)

The city shelter is thinking about allowing the shelter dogs to go off premesis for walks and 'field trips' with volunteers. Some of the rescue centers and shelters that I deal with allow SOME volunteers to take animals off the premesis after they get to know them,and they also make you give a copy of your license. 

I wanted to know if anyone had any other ideas that I could pass along to them? If your shelter does allow this, what protocols do you have?

I don't frequent this particular shelter often,but they are always overwhelmed and a little disorganized. They don't really have any plan,and were just going to let whatever volunteer take a dog off premesis without asking for anything. Their fear is that people will be offended. I told them it's better for a few people to be offended,than for these dogs to get the wrong hands.


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## BowWowMeow (May 7, 2007)

Our city shelter has at least one volunteer who does this. He also fosters. He has a van and he loads it up with dogs and takes them to a nearby park. I have not heard of any problems and it is great fun for the dogs. He's been doing this for years.


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## marbury (Apr 3, 2012)

I think that's a fantastic way to socialize dogs and better prepare them for their future forever homes! But it must be done responsibly. Asking for your license as collateral sounds like a great idea, unless the field tripper has to drive of course!

What about coordinated groups? With one responsible party taking four or five dogs (each separately handled, of course) out on an excursion?


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

Our shelter allows volunteers to take dogs to weekend off-site adoption events. 

Only volunteers who have completed the shelter's introductory volunteer training (earning an entry-level volunteer badge) are permitted to do it. The shelter has applications on file from them with all their personal info. The training lasts a couple of hours, and it's offered one evening a month.

The logistical challenge is ensuring that only dogs who have been vetted and vaccinated get to go out. You don't want to be sending sick dogs out into the community, so the shelter will have to have a program in place to designate which ones can go off-site (and volunteers who are trained to follow that protocol). We have yellow cards on the cages for dogs who can go to off-site events.

We also have a sign-out log. Any time a dog goes off-site, the volunteer has fill out the log book (and log it back in upon return). Again, it's just a matter of setting up a protocol and training the volunteers to follow it.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

Our local SPCA allows dogs to be 'checked out' by the volunteers. While I was volunteering there, my son who was 16 at the time and his friends went through the volunteer training and then 'checked out' dogs often. I personally thought their policy was lacking and didn't take into consideration many, many dangers in that protocol.

But it does socialize and get dogs out of the kennel. I use to go and get any GSD they had, just to give it a break from the shelter life. Most of them were pretty compliant to just go and be walked by a stranger.
Checking out a dog is good, as long as the handler knows what they are doing and the dog cannot slip the collar. Most often, the collars were choke-chains and IMO not the best for their health. I hope they've gotten martingales for all sizes instead!


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## DJEtzel (Feb 11, 2010)

onyx'girl said:


> Our local SPCA allows dogs to be 'checked out' by the volunteers. While I was volunteering there, my son who was 16 at the time and his friends went through the volunteer training and then 'checked out' dogs often. I personally thought their policy was lacking and didn't take into consideration many, many dangers in that protocol.


I agree. This drove me insane while working there.

At one point any volunteer could take any dog any time, no questions asked... then they started making copies of drivers licenses.. but it still could have gone terribly wrong at any point and no one was screened thoroughly or monitored by any means... it would take a lot of work to make a program like this truly work well and dedication on the staff's part. AND COMMUNICATION!


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## Rerun (Feb 27, 2006)

they just started this at our local city shelter and IMHO it's opening them up to a ton of liability. The people taking the dogs on outings may not know these dogs well or in many cases at all, and are taking them to parks, pet stores, etc. I would really worry about bites and escapes, etc.


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

Rerun said:


> they just started this at our local city shelter and IMHO it's opening them up to a ton of liability. The people taking the dogs on outings may not know these dogs well or in many cases at all, and are taking them to parks, pet stores, etc. I would really worry about bites and escapes, etc.


that would be my concern as well. I can see, and advocate, an experienced person who knows how to handle dogs that were determined with a screening process and thru observation. But that could turn into a mess in a hurry if someone with inexperience took a large dog out and a person or another dog got bit.


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