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How You Can Help
There are many ways that you
can help LOLIN in our efforts to save as many Labs as possible. The
two biggest ways are through volunteering and donating much needed funds.
We desperately need foster homes in Indiana
and the surrounding area. The responsibilities and rewards of fostering are
described below. By fostering a dog, you can help us save at least one more
dog (and often times many more than just one!). Please read on below to
learn more.
Foster Home
Dogs that have been rescued need to be fostered in a home for a period of
time, often from one week to a month. Foster families are greatly needed and
have an important role in evaluating the temperament and behavior of the
dog. Foster families help us to determine the best family placement for the
dog. This commitment does, without a question, save a Lab's life.
Foster families are special people that open their hearts and homes to take
in a Lab temporarily and help to place him/her in permanent homes. These dogs
are fostered at the families’ expense. Only health care can be
reimbursed. The family should treat the dog as they would their own dogs and
keep LOLIN apprised of the dog’s condition and availability for adoption. The
foster family will need to keep our Adoption Coordinator regularly updated
with characteristics of the fostered dog so that a prospective family match
can be considered.
Fostering is a tremendous opportunity to help
us save the lives of many of the Labs we love. Please read one of our
favorite articles on fostering,
How do I
FOSTER anyway?
If you would like to help LOLIN by becoming a
foster home, please complete and submit our
Online Foster Application. If you cannot submit your application
electronically, please print out the
PDF Version of our Foster Application.
Adobe Reader, a free software available
here, is required to view this document. You can then submit your
completed application to either our email or mailing address as listed
below.
Before we place any dog in a home, we send a volunteer to the adoptive home
to check to make sure that it’s a safe and loving environment for our dog.
Home checks 15 to 20 minutes to complete, but help us to ensure that the
homes we’re adopting our dogs into are as wonderful as we think they are.
We’ll work with all volunteers to help them feel comfortable doing home
checks, and give the volunteers a form to follow.
In particular, we currently have desperate
need for help in the following areas:
All of Southern Indiana, particularly the
Bloomington, Jeffersonville, and Columbus regions, much of Northern Indiana, particularly the
Lafayette, Ft. Wayne, and Merrillville regions and all of Michigan
Fundraising
Fundraising is a major step in obtaining donations. Ideas from volunteers
are needed to help create methods through which we can solicit donations.
These ideas can be implemented at public events related to dogs’ activities.
Event Help
When we do public events, they can be a major undertaking! We have to manage
all of our dogs, mingle with the community, answer questions from potential
adopters, help people fill out adoption forms, conduct interview…whew! We
need all the help we can get to make these events as successful as possible.
Dog Transportation
Our dogs come from all over - we work with shelters in Indiana, Kentucky,
and Ohio most often.
Often, when dogs are transported from a shelter to a veterinarian or a foster
home, it can cover trips of a couple hours each way. Volunteers are
needed at various times to help transport dogs to these different places.
Crates are usually used in transportation, making it safer for the dog(s)
and the parties driving the dog to their destination. When we have
more volunteers that can meet each other and swap out the driving time,
there's less driving for everyone.
Miscellaneous Jobs
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Here are
about a hundred different ways to help:
Can you...
1. Transport
a dog?
2. Donate a dog bed or towels or other bedding type items?
3. Donate MONEY?
4. Donate a Kong? A Nylabone? A Hercules?
5. Donate a dog crate?
6. Donate an x-pen or baby gates?
7. Donate a food dish or a stainless bucket for a crate?
8. Donate a leash?
9. Donate a collar?
10. Donate some treats or a bag of food?
11. Donate a harness?
12. Walk a dog?
13. Groom a dog?
14. Donate some grooming supplies (shampoos, combs, brushes, etc.)?
15. Go to the local shelter and see if that dog is the breed the
shelter says it is or go with rescue to be a second opinion on the
dog?
16. Make a few phone calls?
17. Mail out applications to people who've requested them?
18. Provide local vet clinics with contact information for
educational materials on responsible pet ownership?
19. Drive a dog to and from vet appointments?
20. Donate long distance calling cards?
21. Donate the use of your scanner or digital camera?
22. Donate the use of a photocopier?
23. Attend public education days and try to educate people on
responsible pet ownership?
24. Donate a gift certificate to a pet store?
25. Donate a raffle item if your club is holding a fundraiser?
26. Donate flea stuff (Advantage, etc.)?
27. Donate heartworm pills?
28. Donate a canine first aid kit?
29. Provide a shoulder to cry on when the rescue person is
overwhelmed?
30. Pay the boarding fees to board a dog for a week? Two weeks?
31. Be a Santi-paws foster to give the foster a break for a few
hours or days?
32. Clip coupons for dog food or treats?
33. Bake some homemade doggie biscuits?
34. Make book purchases through Amazon via a web site that
contributes commissions earned to a rescue group?
35. Host rescue photos with an information link on your website?
36. Donate time to take good photos of foster dogs for adoption
flyers, etc.?
37. Conduct a home visit or accompany a rescue person on the home
visit?
38. Go with rescue person to the vet to help if there is more than
one dog?
39. Have a yard sale and donate the money to rescue?
40. Be a volunteer to do rescue in your area?
41. Take advantage of a promotion on the web or store offering a
free ID tag and instead of getting it for your own dog, have the tag
inscribed with your Club's name and phone # to contact?
42. Talk to all your friends about adopting and fostering rescue
dogs?
43. Donate vet services or can you help by donating a spay or neuter
each year or some vaccinations?
44. Interview vets to encourage them to offer discounts to rescues?
45. Write a column for your local newspaper or club newsletter on
dogs currently looking for homes or ways to help rescue?
46. Take photos of dogs available for adoption for use by the Club?
47. Maintain web sites listing/showing dogs available?
48. Help organize and run fundraising events?
49. Help maintain the paperwork files associated with each dog or
enter the information into a database?
50. Tattoo a rescued dog?
51. Microchip a rescued dog?
52. Loan your carpet steam-cleaner to someone who has fostered a dog
that was sick or marked in the house?
53. Donate a bottle of bleach or other cleaning products?
54. Donate or loan a portable dog run to someone who doesn't have a
quarantine area for quarantining a dog that has an unknown
vaccination history and has been in a shelter?
55. Drive the fosters' children to an activity so that the foster
can take the dog to obedience class?
56. Use your video camera to film a rescue dog in action?
57. Pay the cost of taking a dog to obedience class?
58. Be the one to take the dog to its obedience class?
59. Go to the foster home once a week with your children and dogs to
help socialize the dog?
60. Help the foster clean up the yard (yes, we also have to scoop
what those foster dogs poop)
61. Offer to test the foster dog with cats?
62. Pay for the dog to be groomed or take the dog to a *Do It
Yourself* Grooming Place?
63. Bring the foster take out so the foster doesn't have to cook
dinner?
64. Pay a house-cleaning service to do the spring cleaning for
someone who fosters dogs all the time?
65. Lend your artistic talents to your club's newsletter,
fundraising ideas, and t-shirt designs?
66. Donate printer paper, envelopes and stamps to your club?
67. Go with a rescue person to the vet if a foster dog needs to be
euthanized?
68. Go to local shelters and meet with shelter staff about how to
identify your breed or provide photos and breed information showing
the different types of that breed may come in and the different
color combinations?
69. Go to local businesses and solicit donations for a club's
fundraising event?
70. Offer to try and help owners be better pet owners by holding a
grooming seminar?
71. Help pet owners be better pet owners by being available to
answer training questions?
72. Loan a crate if a dog needs to travel by air?
73. Put together an *Owner's Manual* for those who adopt rescued
dogs of your breed?
74. Provide post-adoption follow up or support?
75. Donate a coupon for a free car wash or gas or inside cleaning of
a vehicle?
76. Pay for an ad in your local/metropolitan paper to help place
rescue dogs?
77. Volunteer to screen calls for that ad?
78. Get some friends together to build/repair pens for a foster
home?
79. Microchip your own pups if you are a breeder, and register the
chips so if your dogs ever come into rescue, you can be contacted to
take responsibility for your pup?
80. Donate a small percentage of the sale of each pup to rescue if
you are a breeder?
81. Buy two of those really neat dog-items you "have to have" and
donate one to Rescue?
82. Make financial arrangements in your will to cover the cost of
caring for your dogs after you are gone - so Rescues won't have to?
83. Make a bequest in your will to your local or national Rescue?
84. Donate your professional services as an accountant or lawyer?
85. Donate other services if you run your own business?
86. Donate the use of a vehicle if you own a car dealership?
87. Loan your cell phone (and cover costs for any calls) to someone
driving a rescued dog?
88. Donate your *used* dog dryer when you get a new one?
89. Let rescue know when you'll be flying and that you'd be willing
to be a rescued dog's escort?
90. Donate a doggy seatbelt?
91. Donate a grid for a van or other vehicle?
92. Organize a rescued dog picnic or other event to reunite the
rescued dogs that have been placed?
93. Donate other types of doggy toys that might be safe for rescued
dogs?
94. Donate a roll-a-treat or Buster cube?
95. Donate clickers or a video on clicker training?
96. Donate materials for a quarantine area at a foster's home?
97. Donate sheets of linoleum or other flooring material to put
under crates to protect the foster’s floor?
98. Donate an engraving tool to make ID tags for each of the rescued
dogs?
99. Remember that rescuing a dog involves the effort and time of
many people and make yourself available on an emergency basis to do
*whatever* is needed?
100. Do something not listed above to help rescue? |
If
you can't volunteer, perhaps you could send a donation of any
size to us so that we can continue to help these Labrador Retriever and Lab
mix dogs that die daily in shelters. (We are a 501(c)3 an
IRS appointed NON-PROFIT CHARITY and your
donations are tax deductible! Many rescues are NOT
501(c)3, and those rescues may use your donations however they chose).
Please mail a
donation to us at LOLIN, INC, PO Box 237, Noblesville, IN 46061-0237.
WE
SINCERELY NEED EVERY PENNY to help with the sheer number of dogs that need
saved.
Thank you.
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