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You can help the homeless animals in your community by volunteering as a Pet Pal at the City of San Jose Animal Care Center. We are looking for dedicated animal lovers to tackle a variety of tasks that will benefit both our shelter animals and visitors to the shelter. Our number one goal is to place our adoptable animals into responsible homes and to ensure that all our shelter animals are cared for and comforted as much as possible during their stay with us.
Volunteer training sessions are held approximately every 8-10 weeks. Our trainings are generally held in January, April, July, and October. You must apply and qualify to receive the training schedule. Read the step-by-step information below to learn more and apply.
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Step One: Understand the Requirements
Minimum Age
Anyone interested in volunteering must be 18 years old. We do not offer a youth program for volunteers under the age of 18. If you are under 18, click here to check out some other ways you can help the animals in your community.
Time Commitment
To volunteer at the Animal Care Center, you must be able to commit to volunteer WEEKLY for 5 hours each week for 6 months.
PLEASE NOTE: We DO NOT provide signatures or printouts of hours for class assignments/projects or community service, except for select veterinary programs. |
Materials Fee
Volunteers are responsible for a $35 materials fee, which includes training materials, volunteer apron, t-shirt, and badge. It is mandatory for volunteers to wear their apron and badge while volunteering at the Animal Care Center. |
Experience Required
Our volunteers fulfill a variety of roles and perform many different assignments. This ranges from helping with administrative tasks to helping with projects around the facility to working with our animals.
- To work with the animals, you must have prior animal handling experience. For instance, if you want to socialize cats, you must have had a cat of your own or had significant experience with cats.
- No experience? If you want to help, but you don't have the experience, don't worry! We have plenty of other volunteer opportunities where we can put your help and skills to good use.
Adult Day Care/Special Needs Groups/Developmental Services Programs: Supervisors are REQUIRED to attend the entire training session(s) with your client(s) and stay with their clients EACH time they volunteer for the entire time they are volunteering. If you have specific questions on this, please call (408) 794-7211.
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Step Two: Read the Volunteer Handbook
Click here to download our Pet Pal Volunteer Handbook. This manual provides important information about the expectations and experience of Animal Care Center volunteers. Before you apply to be a volunteer, you are required to read the entire manual, and you will be expected to know and follow rules and procedures that are covered in the handbook.
Step Three: Check Out Our Volunteer Positions
Not Directly Working With Animals
All of these roles are open to new volunteer applicants. These roles do not require previous animal experience. Most of these roles do not require previous experience, but may have other specific requirements. For all roles, volunteering must be done on-site at the shelter, unless otherwise indicated. Training for these roles are generally offered once a month.
Category |
Tasks |
Availability |
Apply |
Licensing
(Administrative) |
Opening mail, stuffing envelopes, filing, data entry and territory lookup assignments. More |
Open |
Apply |
Shelter - Front End
(Customer Service) |
Answering questions from the public, retrieving voicemails from the phone line, conducting lost pet tours, and more. More |
Open |
Shelter - Back End
(Clean Team) |
Laundry, dishes, stocking adoption rooms and kennel areas, cleaning support for kennel staff, and more. More |
Open |
Working With Animals
To volunteer with our animals, you must have animal handling experience for the type of animal you want to volunteer with. This means that you are already confident, comfortable and capable of interacting with animals properly and safely. You must have a strong understanding of animal body language. Applicants will be thoroughly interviewed about animal handling experience during training. These requirements are designed for your safety as well as the safety of our animals.
Applicants should expect to spend 8-10 hours doing volunteer training. This involves instruction about behavior and health of shelter animals, how to work specifically with our adoptable animals, and extensive shelter procedures. During this training, applicants must pass written and practical exams before being accepted into the volunteer program. Training for these roles are generally offered once every 2 months.
Positions for New Volunteers
Open to all new volunteer applicants with animal handling experience. |
Category |
Tasks |
Availability |
Apply |
Dog |
Walk and exercise adoption dogs. Provide basic training to imcrease adoptability. More |
Open |
Apply
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Cat |
Socialize and exercise adoptable cats. Provide human interaction and affection. More |
Open |
Rabbit |
Socialize and exercise adoptable rabbits. Provide human interaction, affection, and socialization. More |
Open |
Small Animal |
Socialize and handle adoptable small animals, such as rats, mice, gerbils, and guinea pigs. More |
Open |
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