Anyone is welcome to visit the shelter during our open hours!
We do have some restrictions about who can see and interact with shelter pets:
- You must be at least 18 years old to enter our dog kennels or to interact with our adoptable dogs without a parent or guardian present.
- You must be at least 18 years old to interact with our adoptable cats without a parent or guardian present (unless you're working a junior volunteer shift).
- Those 17 and under are welcome to visit the shelter and interact will all of our adoptable pets, so long as they're accompanied by a parent or guardian over the age of 18.
We offer volunteering for those age 12 and older. HSoP cannot accommodate volunteers below the age of 12.
Junior volunteering is offered 2:00-5:00pm Monday through Friday. Junior volunteers must be accompanied by a parent or guardian during their first shift, and can come in for one unsupervised hour at a time following that. Junior volunteers cannot enter our dog kennels or interact with our dogs without having a parent or guardian present.
Be sure to visit our volunteer page to learn more about junior volunteering!
Lots of different things! Our volunteers help in a multitude of ways, here are a few examples:
- Spend time playing with our dogs outside
- Exercise our cats by playing in the adoption room
- Help HSoP staff with laundry and other cleaning duties
- Make special treats that provide enrichment for our pets
- Spend time brushing out both cats and dogs
- Take cute pictures of our pets to help them gain attention online
- Give some attention to our friends in the small animal room
Volunteers can also help us with special events like fundraisers and shelter clean-up days!
During your first volunteer shift, a HSoP staff member will give you a short orientation. They will walk you through our facility and explain how you can stay safe while you are volunteering and how you can help keep the animals safe as well.
The staff member will show you our volunteer board that has different tasks you can sign up for helping HSoP with.
In order to volunteer with the Humane Society of the Palouse, you must complete the required volunteer form and arrange a time to come in for your first shift. Please call HSoP at 208-883-1166 to get on our volunteer schedule.
All of us here at HSoP are grateful for all the interest in group volunteering. However, we do not have the space in our tiny facility to accommodate groups larger than 3 at one time. If you are interested your group helping HSoP, we have a list of group volunteering ideas and DIY volunteering ideas listed on our volunteer page. You can also email us at information@humanesocietyofthepalouse.org with any group volunteering ideas.
During our regular hours of operation, having such a small facility, there simply isn’t enough space for large groups of volunteers and potential adopters. We are very grateful for the interest in having groups come in helping the homeless animals. However, allowing enough space for potential adopters to come in during our hours of operation is what is needed in order to find homeless animals their forever homes.
Yes. HSoP can take in volunteers needing to complete disciplinary community service Monday through Saturday from 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM. You must schedule in advance by calling us at (208) 883-1166. For more information, visit the Court Mandated Community Service section on our volunteer page.
That’s great—thank you for your previous service—however, each humane society, animal control facility, or rescue group is an independent agency, so very few of us are connected locally (as in some states) or to any organization on a national level. Therefore, our policies and procedures might be completely different from the facility where you previously volunteered. Most shelters adhere to a “Standards of Best Practices/Care” so there are certainly some similarities; however, we need you to be familiar with our shelter and our policies/procedures. This includes training for dog walking.
As with people, dogs need to slowly build up muscle strength and endurance in order to avoid potential injury when running or jogging. The dogs HSoP has up for adoption have not had the training needed to prevent injury or to build the endurance to sustain them on runs. To avoid injury, we do not allow running or jogging without first being conditioned to do so.
Our pets would absolutely love some snuggly homemade blankets! We can typically use any size blanket for our pets, but some dimensions do work better for our cat kennels and dog beds.
For blankets that fit each of our cat kennels, we would recommend the size to be about 20"x 24".
For blankets that fit the beds in each of our dog kennels, we would recommend the size to be about 24"x 36".
There are many ways to support our work!
Make a financial contribution. Visit our Donate page for options.
Make an in-kind donation. With just a few simple clicks, you can send much needed supplies to our shelter through our Amazon Wish List, our Kitten Supplies Amazon Wish List or our Wish List for donations that may be dropped off at the shelter during open business hours.