Volunteer at the local animal shelter

“Working at an animal shelter isn’t the most glamorous work. I can tell you from firsthand experience: Do not wear your favorite shirt when training the dogs how to sit and stay because the big slobbering kiss that the Boxer is going to give you is going all over it. I wouldn’t wear new sneakers when feeding the cats either, especially near that one black tabby who shows her displeasure of particular food by spitting it out at random targets.”

“I remember teaching a mixed breed Collie how to sit, and when I came back the next time, another volunteer had taught her how to do paw. So every time I came with a treat, without even giving the commands, she immediately sat and gave me her paw. The experience was as motivating and exciting as it was to teach my own Labradoodle puppy to do the same tricks.”

“The second shelter was in a big city and it was frustrating at first because we were not trusted at all at the beginning - we spent a few weeks only volunteering two hours a week during their biweekly dog walk with 20+ other volunteers this shelter was much larger and inherently more depressing [...] Anyways eventually we met the shelter dog trainer [...] and she noticed we had extensive experience and gave us some more responsibilities and some dogs only experienced handlers were allowed to handle, but ultimately we volunteered drastically less at this shelter, and I didn't feel we were making nearly as much of a difference. The dog walks were still nice, of course!”