“EVERY day is a beautiful day, you just have to make it that way.”
While driving out of the SPCA Kloof on Wednesday the above text catches my eye and I couldn’t agree more.
I smile and think, specially Wednesday is a beautiful day as that is the day that we are walking the dogs that are up for adoption at the SPCA Kloof.
Around 9am on Wednesday, Derek, Sandra, Barbara, Merrill, Andy and myself are the volunteer dog walkers.
Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays there are also teams that give the dogs their so needed walk, hug, love, treat and sometimes a brush.
Some of us have volunteered for years.
Proudly we are all dressed in the bright blue dog walkers T-shirt, find the kennel list and choose our dogs.
Andy and Derek take the big boisterous boys that can be hard work.
Sandra prefers the smaller ones and the rest of us walk whoever is on the list.
We walk on the SPCA grounds and walk the dogs about 15 minutes each, often five dogs per person.
Good exercise and at about 11am, we feel muscles that we didn’t know were there before.
We are dirty, sweaty, often scratched, full of mosquito bites, thirsty, maybe a tick here and there from the forest and ready for our coffee in the tea garden. Our heart and soul full with the love that the dogs have shared.
To be accepted as a dog walker there is quite some admin to do.
An indemnity form, credentials, a good behaviour form and so on, but don’t let this put you off.
And out of the kennels we take our dogs on these Wednesdays, those privileged dogs that are well fed, well cared for, checked and treated by the SPCA vet and now, after a seven-week observation period are waiting to be adopted.
Still their future is uncertain as that “Someone” that “One Special Person” has to come in and fall in love with that one “Special Dog”.
Sometimes the dog has been brought in by SPCA inspectors as a stray or because it was maltreated or neglected, sometimes the previous owner died or emigrated.
Or it was too much to handle, the so called mismatch or an impulsive buy. But never the dogs’ fault.
Volunteering as a dog walker is not for sissies, it’s emotionally and physically challenging.
For all of us a highlight in our week, though.
On Wednesday and also on Mondays, we would like to get a couple more volunteers in, to have more quality time with that traumatised anxious dog, or to take that hyperactive dog for a second walk or to give a coat full of knots a good brush.
If all the above appeals to you and you are available on Wednesdays from around 9am until 11am on a flexible, more or less permanent basis, if you are not only a dog lover but know how to treat, handle and read dogs, are able to accept that sometimes that special dog that you have become a bit attached to isn’t there the following week, please join our great Wednesday morning team.
