Volunteer!
Thank you for your interest in volunteering at MSRH. We are always in need of kind-hearted people willing to lend their time, talents and/or treasures: Foster Families, Groomers, Transportation, Adoption Application Screening, Home Visits and, of course, Monetary Donations.
Our most important group of volunteers is our Foster Families. These are single or multi-person homes - pet owners or not - that are willing to share their home until our ‘children’ can be adopted. Foster families provide care and companionship while the dogs are with them. This includes food, water, grooming and trips to the veterinarian. As many of our dogs are heartworm positive and must go through treatment before being adopted, we’ve developed a program with certain veterinarians so that vet expenses can be covered by MSRH. Most foster families provide food for the dogs but in certain cases, particularly those involving special diets, MSRH can cover the expense. All expenses not reimbursed are tax deductible. What’s it like to be a foster? Check out this link: http://www.heightspages.com/SearchEngine/search.pl?q=foster&showurl=%2F2009Summer%2Fhtml%2F76.html
Our Groomers are primarily MSRH members who have honed their schnauzer cutting skills over the years. If you are a Groomer, or just know how to groom schnauzers, we can always use your volunteer or low-cost services to help offset expenses for our Foster Families. With retail grooming costing between $35 to $60 per dog, and considering the need for grooming every six weeks, it’s easy to see how this expense quickly adds up. This is money that could be used for vet bills for the next rescued dog.
Our Transportation volunteers use their own vehicles to move dogs from the shelters to veterinarians and from there to the foster homes. Though we primarily focus our efforts in the greater Houston area, it is not uncommon for us to get requests to rescue dogs from Austin, Dallas, Beaumont and Louisiana.
The Adoption Application team pre-screens adoption applications, verifies information, coordinates vet reference checks and conducts general telephone interviews. These volunteers help to ensure that adopters know expectations of them as schnauzers parents.
The Home Visit volunteers travel to potential adopter homes to conduct a home survey. This survey helps ensure that the new home is dog safe both inside and out. The team evaluates basic items like fence type and height, pool safety and plant safety. It is certainly not a team looking for “dust bunnies”. Since adoption applications come from all over southeast Texas, we always need more volunteers to serve in this capacity.
Last, but certainly not least, we can always use your Monetary or Other Donations. Your donations keep MSRH up and running. Even relatively small donations can help. When your donation is combined with donations from your friends and family, the value of the gift is magnified. Please see the link “Donations” for more information on how to make monetary gifts. Donations of food and supplies are accepted also. Every little bit helps!
If you are interested in serving in any of these capacities, please contact us at volunteer@msrh.org. Thank You!!