Am I old enough to volunteer at an animal shelter??

Question

I am 13 years old and I love animals!! My parents are still deciding wether or not to let me get a pet so they think working with animals is a great idea!

Answer 1

I am a volunteer coordinator for animal control/shelter. You have to be 18 years old.  Even at the humane society the age limits have changed. You must be 18.

PetCo and Petsmart some times will take you and let you help on saturdays. Good luck, I hope you find some thing that you like.

Answer 2

I'm pretty sure you have to 18 or have a parent with you

Answer 3

As far as the age limit goes, it all depends on the shelter or rescue.  I am sure that plenty of people on here will tell you specific ages like 18 or 16, but its not that simple.

EACH organization has different rules, different policies. Some you have to be 18 years old, some 16, some younger, and some will let you volunteer with a parent or sign a contract. They are all different, and the only way to find out is to check with each shelter to see what policy they have.

I would find you some good organizations but I don't know where you live.

But, you can find shelters REALLY easily.

To find shelters/rescues, follow these directions:

visit : http://www.petfinder.com/

Scroll down, and on the left it says "Find Animal Welfare Groups".

You can put in your location/zip code and it will provide you with a list of all of the animal rescues and shelters in your area.

Go through the list, call them, visit them, or take a look at there websites to see what their age limit is.

Thats the best way of finding out who you can volunteer with.

http://www.volunteermatch.org/ is also a great website for finding shelters and organizations to volunteer with and it will show you when you search which shelters are teen friendly.

Also, I find shelters to have a more strict policy and age limit. Rescues, who work off of foster homes (homes that take in animals until they get adopted), are more lenient about the age limit.

It was difficult for me to find a shelter to volunteer with when I was your age, I had to look for a couple of months until I finally found a shelter that would let me volunteer(the age limit was 13 and over with parent supervision). It worked out great!

It was nice spending more time with my mom.

Volunteering at a shelter is a lot of fun, but some people sometimes have bad experiences and don't want to volunteer because they have been to a bad, high kill shelter. Not all shelters are high kill and if you volunteer with one shelter and have a bad experience that doesn't mean you should stop. Just keep looking for the animal organization that suits you because they are all different. Some will let you play with the animals, and some might want you to do the dirty work, like cleaning up p**p, vomit, laundry, etc.  Some might have great outreach, spay/neuter, and other programs that you can get involved with.  Your experience just depends on the shelter/rescue.

Just remember to never give up on your search, keep trying, there are MANY MANY shelters and rescues out there and they ALL need your help.

Also, a GREAT website that could help you a lot is http://www.humaneteen.org/?q=forum

The Humane Teen (one of the Humane Society of the United State's programs) website has great suggestion on how teens can help animals (volunteering, fundraising, clubs,..etc.). You can even get advice and help from other teens on the message board or the Humane Advisory Board members. I think that this website would help you so much! Check it out. :)

Good luck!