Helen from rehoming tells us about a typical day at Oldies Club…
Oldies Club (OC) is a small, volunteer-run charity that rehomes unwanted/homeless dogs over seven years old. They place the dog in an approved foster home where they will be thoroughly assessed and then featured on the website to await their forever home. Whilst in care, OC pay for all the vet bills for any treatment needed by the dog. This is a huge cost for a small charity, and they are always looking for donations and fundraising opportunities.
What’s a typical day like?
Helen: As with any role, there is a lot of admin related tasks that need doing to ensure we each work in a consistent manner, such as:
● Administration: we receive enquiries for fostering, donating and other rescues asking us to promote their older dogs – these enquiries are passed on to the relevant volunteer in Oldies Club.
● Re-homing a dog: the bulk of the work and the most complex are enquiries from owners who need to re-home their dog(s). A thorough checklist needs to be completed; establish legal ownership; making an initial assessment of the dog in terms of background/medical history/temperament/who has the dog lived with-can live with; any anxieties the dog may have; what is their normal exercise routine, to name just a few. We also request photos; and we need to establish if this is an urgent case. Once these questions are answered we move on to put the dog on our waiting list, while we conduct further checks. A confirmation email is sent to the owner confirming the dog has been added to the waiting list, encouraging them to try other rescues given no guarantee we can help, and including appropriate breed and local rescues to try. We then have to wait to see if we have a foster placement available that will suit the needs of the dog. When we have a place, then we arrange transport to move the dog to the foster placement.
● Adopting a dog: We receive enquiries from the general public from people who are interested in adopting one of the dogs promoted on our website. Firstly, we make an initial telephone assessment based on the potential adopter and whether they closely match the dog’s needs. If so, an adoption form is sent to them which contains a lot of detail. If there are many applications for one dog, then we match the adopter best suited to the dog and then ask for a home visit to be arranged. At all times, there is a lot of contact
