August 30, 2024 • 20 mins
Join me in celebrating a major milestone as we reach our 300th episode! Since launching in November 2016, the ideas keep flowing!
Today, we focus on the benefits of volunteering. I'll share personal stories, including how volunteering helped my youngest daughter overcome depression during COVID, boosting her self-confidence and sense of purpose. You'll discover how volunteering can improve mental and physical health, social well-being, and even offer career exploration opportunities.
We’ll explore the value of aligning your volunteer work with your interests and personality, and the unique rewards and challenges of different environments. Plus, get practical tips on enjoying your time at a cat shelter without turning your home into a feline sanctuary. Tune in and find out how you can experience the joy of volunteering while maintaining balance and purpose in your life!
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About Dr. Liz
Interested in hypnosis with Dr. Liz? Schedule your free consultation at https://www.drlizhypnosis.com
Winner of numerous awards including Top 100 Moms in Business, Dr. Liz provides psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and hypnosis to people wanting a fast, easy way to transform all around the world. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and has special certification in Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy. Specialty areas include Anxiety, Insomnia, and Deeper Emotional Healing.
A problem shared is a problem halved. In person and online hypnosis and CBT for healing and transformation.
Listened to in over 140 countries, Hypnotize Me is the podcast about hypnosis, transformation, and healing. Certified hypnotherapist and Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Dr. Liz Bonet, discusses hypnosis and interviews professionals doing transformational work
Thank you for tuning in!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Liz (00:01):
Hi everyone.
Dr Liz here.
This is episode 300.
I will tell you, it's quite an
accomplishment as a small niche podcaster
to do 300 episodes.
Like whew, that's a lot.
I tell you, I started the podcast in 2016.
(00:23):
So Fresh One aired 11-29-2016, november
29th 2016.
In that first couple of years I think three
years, maybe four, looking at my
spreadsheet here, definitely four years,
(00:43):
five years I did weekly episodes.
Weekly episodes, I think I didn't switch to
every other week until my sixth year or so.
I'm looking again at the spreadsheet.
So I did five years of weekly episodes,
with some breaks here and there, but that's
a lot.
Then I switched to every other week and
(01:04):
that's more manageable for me and I've
pretty much kept that, with some breaks
here and there, of course.
But yeah, I have not reached a million
downloads yet.
Probably if I counted up all my YouTube
plays as well, maybe, but I'm very, very
close.
So I thought, okay, I'll reach a million
(01:25):
downloads and then I'll stop podcasting.
And then it was like, oh, I'll go to 300
episodes and then I'll stop podcasting, but
I still have stuff to say.
I still have stuff to share with you.
So I think I'm gonna keep going.
I just aired an episode about how do you
know hypnosis is working, and I talked
about hypnosis for bladder leakage for
(01:47):
women.
I thought, oh, I would love to have the
hypnotherapist on Lisa Viviano who actually
does that.
Like that would help so many women.
So there's that.
There's other ideas I want to talk about
how to make a big decision.
That comes up for a lot of people, like how
do I make a big, life-changing decision and
(02:09):
the fear that goes with that sometimes and
how do you do that?
It's another idea.
So I keep an ideas list and, believe me,
there's like a million ideas.
So I don't think I'm done yet.
Today I thought I would talk about
volunteering, because I get asked quite a
bit about it.
If you're on my newsletter or you've
listened to the podcast for any length of
(02:31):
time, you probably hear me talk about
volunteering at the cat shelter with the
cats.
People ask me how do I do that without
adopting a million cats?
So I thought I'd give some tips about
volunteering in general and also how to
volunteer at a cat shelter without adopting
a million cats.
(02:51):
I can't guarantee you're gonna not be a cat
lady, but I can say I have some tips about,
you know, not going over two cats or three
cats or whatever that that limit is for you.
Let's quickly review the benefits of
volunteering.
Mental health for sure.
People are happier.
This is all based on research studies.
(03:14):
People are happier.
They have a greater sense of purpose,
they're less depressed, self-confidence,
they have a greater sense of social
well-being and life satisfaction.
Now there's a caveat to this.
The caveat is not if you're volunteering
with depressed people For real like this is
what the research says If you're
(03:36):
volunteering on like a suicide hotline,
yeah, you're not going to get all those
benefits.
You may get some different benefits, like
oh, I helped save some lives today, but you
actually don't get a whole lot of the
happiness benefits.
So, sense of purpose, you absolutely get
perhaps some self confidence, but happiness
(03:56):
not going to go up if you're doing that.
But pretty much that's the only category
that happiness doesn't increase when you
volunteer.
When we first started volunteering at the
cat shelter, my youngest daughter was very
depressed.
It was during COVID.
I had called a colleague and she said oh,
(04:18):
she needs to know she matters to someone
other than you Like other.
She knows she matters to you but something
else outside of the family, outside of
herself, and she loves cats.
And so that's how we started volunteering
at the cat shelter and we've done that for
three years and the other day it was the
(04:40):
week before she was going to move to
college in a different town and one of the
owners of the cat shelter said to me she
has transformed.
Like when she first started.
She could not even look me in the eye.
Oh, I'm going to get teary here.
(05:03):
It really helped transform her and she was
right.
I mean there's a lot of stuff we did during
those three years, but the cat shelter was
a huge part of that and she learned about
how to take care of the cats and give them
medicine and flea comb.
(05:24):
She says one of her hobbies is flea combing
now, which is super funny.
But yeah, it helped her so much her mental
health.
Like those cats love her.
They come to recognize you when you go
every week and she loved them and so, yeah,
(05:44):
it can help transform you Absolutely.
Physical health people actually live longer
who volunteer.
They have a greater sense of health, like
self-perceived when they say you know, rate
how healthy you are.
Right, they're not taking blood work or
stuff.
It also gives you some activity, like
you're getting out of the house and doing
(06:05):
something If you're volunteering from home,
you're still.
You have something to do, so that helps
with your physical health Career
exploration.
I think this is definitely a good one,
probably more for younger people, but
certainly for older people too.
If you're trying to figure out how to
(06:25):
switch careers or you want to do something
different, volunteering is actually a way
that they recommend to test something out.
When I came out of graduate school, I was
pretty burned out.
I wasn't sure I wanted to be a therapist
anymore.
I actually sought a job in tech.
So I became one of the early web designer
programmers, because I taught myself how to
(06:46):
do that in graduate school, actually when
the web was just beginning, literally like
1995, 1996.
And so I volunteer at a dog training place
because I thought I wanted to train dogs
instead of be a therapist.
I volunteered there for about two years and
(07:07):
discovered I didn't want to train dogs.
I was good at it, but I didn't like the
owners.
Like the owners are really difficult.
Now I'm a dog owner, okay.
So I find this really funny.
I was not a dog owner at the time.
I had dogs growing up.
But you know, you go to college and grad
(07:28):
school.
It's hard to have a dog sometimes.
So I didn't have one at the time.
I was like, oh my god, they're like parents.
I was a child specialist at the time that I
was burning out.
Parents were so hard to deal with and they
are.
I, as a parent, am hard to deal with, even
if I try to be an easy to deal with parent.
No, parents are parents.
(07:52):
You know, we're trying to take care of our
little cubs, so there's an element there
that we're hard to deal with.
So anyway, it taught me okay, I don't want
to be a dog trainer, I'm going to stick
with programming right now.
So it's a good way to explore something.
Now they do differentiate.
The research literature differentiates
between other-oriented volunteering and
self-oriented volunteering.
So self-oriented volunteering is like
(08:12):
people volunteering as a way to get ahead
somehow or look good, versus other-oriented
is helping others, helping their community,
even helping animals.
You're doing it to help someone else
outside yourself, not necessarily just for
yourself to look good.
So the benefits really come from
(08:34):
other-oriented volunteering.
Just so you know that's a vast majority of
people really, and sometimes you can get a
clue of this, of whether someone's doing it
because they have to like oh, I'm doing
this to advertise my business, versus I'm
doing this because I really believe in this
organization, this cause.
(08:56):
There's a difference there.
Another reason to volunteer is it's fun,
like you meet people if you're social.
If you're not, then you find some activity
you can do where you don't have to interact
so much with people.
If it's not fun, I suggest looking for a
different volunteer experience.
(09:18):
So I have volunteered most of my life.
My parents used to make me volunteer when I
was younger, but then when I went to
college I did it on my own.
I remember my new year's resolution the
first year in college was to volunteer at
least once a week and so off and on.
Pretty much since then I've been
(09:39):
volunteering.
So I've tried out a lot of different things
and I can say the better fit for you, the
better the volunteer experience.
So choose indoor, outdoor.
A lot of volunteering is outdoor.
If you don't like to be outdoor, don't do
that.
There's more structured versus less.
So some organizations require that you're
(10:01):
there, I don't know Tuesday, thursday, from
two to four and that's it, and you can't do
less.
They don't want you there more.
If that doesn't work for you, move on.
You got to consider noise level.
So there's an organization here.
Feeding South Florida is part of a larger
(10:21):
organization, feeding Florida, that helps
feed hungry families and children and
individuals, adults, and they have this
huge warehouse where you can go and help
pack up boxes to give to people.
But they put on extremely loud like club
level Latin music okay, when they're doing
(10:45):
these shifts.
So it's about a two hour.
No, I think it's a three hour shift minimum
or something.
And so I did that a couple of times and
realized like this is not a good fit for me.
I hate the noise.
It's super stressful.
You have to lift a lot which I can lift,
but there's some really heavy items I
couldn't, so I had to ask for help for that
(11:07):
and you're sort of interrupting the flow
with someone else.
So I realized like this isn't a good fit
for me.
Actually, this one is not the cat shelter,
is the opposite.
It is super quiet, like zero noise pretty
much, which Evan and I loved.
Like we would go in and we'd do some
(11:28):
cleaning and scooping the litter boxes and
then we'd like groom the cats.
And when I first started they called me the
reader because I would take my book and I
would sit and read and pet a cat.
There's always cats who went petting and
need petting and after I my cleaning that's
what I would do.
So that was a really good fit for us and
(11:49):
for Eva too.
She's very she has all kinds of sensory
stuff because of her autism and me I
consider myself HSP highly sensitive person,
so light, sound clothing, textures, that
type of thing.
One of her friends went with us and the cat
shelter was not a good fit for her because
she has OCD around like cleanliness and
(12:11):
it's it's dirty.
Okay, no matter how clean you try to keep a
cat shelter, it's dirty.
So she found like she couldn't do it.
That was not a good fit for her.
So you've got to consider these different
factors and don't feel bad.
If it's not a good fit, just move on and
find some place.
That is is what I say.
The other factor there is what your heart
(12:33):
calls you to do With the Feeding South
Florida, the hungry families.
I decided to donate money instead, like a
monthly amount, because my heart calls me
to do that, like a monthly amount, because
my heart calls me to do that.
I love cats.
I love them more now that I volunteered at
a cat shelter.
So it's like my heart really called me to
do that Now that Eva's at college, I still
(12:56):
go because I really like it and it feels
like a connection to her as well.
So what is your heart calling you to do?
When I was training dogs, I love dogs and
so I was like, oh, I'll go try that out,
like I'll volunteer, see if it's a good fit,
and I love dogs.
So you've got to see what your heart calls
you to do.
(13:17):
If your heart is calling you to go to
another country and volunteer and do a work
trip like that, go for it.
Go for it.
What is your heart calling you to do?
All right, let's get more specific about
how not to adopt a million cats if you're
volunteering at a cat shelter or dogs.
Actually, we went to the humane society the
(13:38):
other day because I get my dogs like flea
medication there and stuff.
It's it's lower cost than if I buy it
online or something or at the vet, and so I
don't usually go in the section with all
the dogs.
But Evan, her partner, were there that day
and so we went and visited the dogs.
And dogs are loud, like super loud.
(14:02):
They barky, barky, barky.
And I realized like, oh yeah, this wouldn't
be a good fit for me actually to volunteer,
the Humane Society, which has, you know,
all kinds of animals, cats and dogs mainly,
but bunnies too and that type of thing.
But also it's like, oh, I wanted to take
all those dogs home.
All of them Like, oh, you're so cute, oh,
you're so cute, oh, you're the cutest, like
(14:24):
all of them.
So it was hard.
So how not to take the dogs and cats home?
My top tip is have one at home who is old
or antisocial, that doesn't get along with
other cats or other dogs.
Dogs particularly are, you know, you can
integrate them into a pack, but sometimes
(14:44):
they don't integrate and you have to take
the dog back or something.
That's a way to tell.
Sometimes you foster a cat or dog, you do a
trial and if they don't fit then you can
take them back.
But my 14 year old cat she still has not
adjusted to the kitten we adopted at like
six months from the shelter because she
(15:06):
wasn't getting adopted, like pretty much
all of her cohort had been adopted, but her
we, we really loved her.
So we thought, okay, let's take her home,
see how she does.
My old cat still doesn't like her.
Like they have sort of a neutral
understanding, let's say.
But the little one still wants to play with
the old one.
(15:26):
The old one's like eh, get away, hisses at
her and stuff.
So it helps to have an older animal at home
that doesn't get along with other animals.
That stops me a lot from taking cats home.
There's definitely some that I would have
adopted.
Mambo, who's this gigantic cat with like
(15:47):
one cloudy eye, smokey.
I was there the night he came in, this
little gray and white, adorable kitten.
I would have adopted him.
Somebody adopted him before me because he
was so adorable.
There was one oh my gosh, I don't remember
his name.
He was this little white cat with blue eyes,
so it was Siamese somewhere in him and he
(16:07):
would jump and catch flies Adorable, okay.
I was like, oh my God, this is a great cat
to have of mosquitoes and flies in Florida.
He got adopted super fast too.
So sometimes that can help if you just wait
a couple weeks or a couple months and you
say, okay, let me see if this cat gets
adopted and then, if they don't, I'll
(16:29):
reconsider it.
So you just sort of put it off for a while.
That can help you talk yourself out of it.
You know that they're safe.
You can visit next week or tomorrow,
however often you want to go.
The other thing that stops me is they cost
money.
Vet bills, food animals are expensive where
(16:49):
I live I don't know where you live, but
where I live it takes some money to support
them, to take them to the vet and do
anti-flea stuff and their heartworm.
And yeah, that stops me.
Sometimes it seems like the fur sort of
triples every time you get a new animal,
(17:10):
even if they're not long haired cats.
It's like oh, the fur somehow is all over
the place.
It doesn't just double when you get that
extra cat, it like triples.
So that stops me too.
I don't want any more fur.
So those are my top tips for volunteering
and how not to adopt a million cats.
When you volunteer at a cat shelter, okay,
(17:31):
that's it.
You can go and enjoy them at the shelter,
know that you're going to see them next
week and hope that they get adopted before
you adopt them.
All right people, I hope you are healthy
and safe.
I'll talk to you soon, peace.
Hi everyone.
Dr Liz here.
This is episode 300.
I will tell you, it's quite an
accomplishment as a small niche podcaster
to do 300 episodes.
Like whew, that's a lot.
I tell you, I started the podcast in 2016.
(00:23):
So Fresh One aired 11-29-2016, november
29th 2016.
In that first couple of years I think three
years, maybe four, looking at my
spreadsheet here, definitely four years,
(00:43):
five years I did weekly episodes.
Weekly episodes, I think I didn't switch to
every other week until my sixth year or so.
I'm looking again at the spreadsheet.
So I did five years of weekly episodes,
with some breaks here and there, but that's
a lot.
Then I switched to every other week and
(01:04):
that's more manageable for me and I've
pretty much kept that, with some breaks
here and there, of course.
But yeah, I have not reached a million
downloads yet.
Probably if I counted up all my YouTube
plays as well, maybe, but I'm very, very
close.
So I thought, okay, I'll reach a million
(01:25):
downloads and then I'll stop podcasting.
And then it was like, oh, I'll go to 300
episodes and then I'll stop podcasting, but
I still have stuff to say.
I still have stuff to share with you.
So I think I'm gonna keep going.
I just aired an episode about how do you
know hypnosis is working, and I talked
about hypnosis for bladder leakage for
(01:47):
women.
I thought, oh, I would love to have the
hypnotherapist on Lisa Viviano who actually
does that.
Like that would help so many women.
So there's that.
There's other ideas I want to talk about
how to make a big decision.
That comes up for a lot of people, like how
do I make a big, life-changing decision and
(02:09):
the fear that goes with that sometimes and
how do you do that?
It's another idea.
So I keep an ideas list and, believe me,
there's like a million ideas.
So I don't think I'm done yet.
Today I thought I would talk about
volunteering, because I get asked quite a
bit about it.
If you're on my newsletter or you've
listened to the podcast for any length of
(02:31):
time, you probably hear me talk about
volunteering at the cat shelter with the
cats.
People ask me how do I do that without
adopting a million cats?
So I thought I'd give some tips about
volunteering in general and also how to
volunteer at a cat shelter without adopting
a million cats.
(02:51):
I can't guarantee you're gonna not be a cat
lady, but I can say I have some tips about,
you know, not going over two cats or three
cats or whatever that that limit is for you.
Let's quickly review the benefits of
volunteering.
Mental health for sure.
People are happier.
This is all based on research studies.
(03:14):
People are happier.
They have a greater sense of purpose,
they're less depressed, self-confidence,
they have a greater sense of social
well-being and life satisfaction.
Now there's a caveat to this.
The caveat is not if you're volunteering
with depressed people For real like this is
what the research says If you're
(03:36):
volunteering on like a suicide hotline,
yeah, you're not going to get all those
benefits.
You may get some different benefits, like
oh, I helped save some lives today, but you
actually don't get a whole lot of the
happiness benefits.
So, sense of purpose, you absolutely get
perhaps some self confidence, but happiness
(03:56):
not going to go up if you're doing that.
But pretty much that's the only category
that happiness doesn't increase when you
volunteer.
When we first started volunteering at the
cat shelter, my youngest daughter was very
depressed.
It was during COVID.
I had called a colleague and she said oh,
(04:18):
she needs to know she matters to someone
other than you Like other.
She knows she matters to you but something
else outside of the family, outside of
herself, and she loves cats.
And so that's how we started volunteering
at the cat shelter and we've done that for
three years and the other day it was the
(04:40):
week before she was going to move to
college in a different town and one of the
owners of the cat shelter said to me she
has transformed.
Like when she first started.
She could not even look me in the eye.
Oh, I'm going to get teary here.
(05:03):
It really helped transform her and she was
right.
I mean there's a lot of stuff we did during
those three years, but the cat shelter was
a huge part of that and she learned about
how to take care of the cats and give them
medicine and flea comb.
(05:24):
She says one of her hobbies is flea combing
now, which is super funny.
But yeah, it helped her so much her mental
health.
Like those cats love her.
They come to recognize you when you go
every week and she loved them and so, yeah,
(05:44):
it can help transform you Absolutely.
Physical health people actually live longer
who volunteer.
They have a greater sense of health, like
self-perceived when they say you know, rate
how healthy you are.
Right, they're not taking blood work or
stuff.
It also gives you some activity, like
you're getting out of the house and doing
(06:05):
something If you're volunteering from home,
you're still.
You have something to do, so that helps
with your physical health Career
exploration.
I think this is definitely a good one,
probably more for younger people, but
certainly for older people too.
If you're trying to figure out how to
(06:25):
switch careers or you want to do something
different, volunteering is actually a way
that they recommend to test something out.
When I came out of graduate school, I was
pretty burned out.
I wasn't sure I wanted to be a therapist
anymore.
I actually sought a job in tech.
So I became one of the early web designer
programmers, because I taught myself how to
(06:46):
do that in graduate school, actually when
the web was just beginning, literally like
1995, 1996.
And so I volunteer at a dog training place
because I thought I wanted to train dogs
instead of be a therapist.
I volunteered there for about two years and
(07:07):
discovered I didn't want to train dogs.
I was good at it, but I didn't like the
owners.
Like the owners are really difficult.
Now I'm a dog owner, okay.
So I find this really funny.
I was not a dog owner at the time.
I had dogs growing up.
But you know, you go to college and grad
(07:28):
school.
It's hard to have a dog sometimes.
So I didn't have one at the time.
I was like, oh my god, they're like parents.
I was a child specialist at the time that I
was burning out.
Parents were so hard to deal with and they
are.
I, as a parent, am hard to deal with, even
if I try to be an easy to deal with parent.
No, parents are parents.
(07:52):
You know, we're trying to take care of our
little cubs, so there's an element there
that we're hard to deal with.
So anyway, it taught me okay, I don't want
to be a dog trainer, I'm going to stick
with programming right now.
So it's a good way to explore something.
Now they do differentiate.
The research literature differentiates
between other-oriented volunteering and
self-oriented volunteering.
So self-oriented volunteering is like
(08:12):
people volunteering as a way to get ahead
somehow or look good, versus other-oriented
is helping others, helping their community,
even helping animals.
You're doing it to help someone else
outside yourself, not necessarily just for
yourself to look good.
So the benefits really come from
(08:34):
other-oriented volunteering.
Just so you know that's a vast majority of
people really, and sometimes you can get a
clue of this, of whether someone's doing it
because they have to like oh, I'm doing
this to advertise my business, versus I'm
doing this because I really believe in this
organization, this cause.
(08:56):
There's a difference there.
Another reason to volunteer is it's fun,
like you meet people if you're social.
If you're not, then you find some activity
you can do where you don't have to interact
so much with people.
If it's not fun, I suggest looking for a
different volunteer experience.
(09:18):
So I have volunteered most of my life.
My parents used to make me volunteer when I
was younger, but then when I went to
college I did it on my own.
I remember my new year's resolution the
first year in college was to volunteer at
least once a week and so off and on.
Pretty much since then I've been
(09:39):
volunteering.
So I've tried out a lot of different things
and I can say the better fit for you, the
better the volunteer experience.
So choose indoor, outdoor.
A lot of volunteering is outdoor.
If you don't like to be outdoor, don't do
that.
There's more structured versus less.
So some organizations require that you're
(10:01):
there, I don't know Tuesday, thursday, from
two to four and that's it, and you can't do
less.
They don't want you there more.
If that doesn't work for you, move on.
You got to consider noise level.
So there's an organization here.
Feeding South Florida is part of a larger
(10:21):
organization, feeding Florida, that helps
feed hungry families and children and
individuals, adults, and they have this
huge warehouse where you can go and help
pack up boxes to give to people.
But they put on extremely loud like club
level Latin music okay, when they're doing
(10:45):
these shifts.
So it's about a two hour.
No, I think it's a three hour shift minimum
or something.
And so I did that a couple of times and
realized like this is not a good fit for me.
I hate the noise.
It's super stressful.
You have to lift a lot which I can lift,
but there's some really heavy items I
couldn't, so I had to ask for help for that
(11:07):
and you're sort of interrupting the flow
with someone else.
So I realized like this isn't a good fit
for me.
Actually, this one is not the cat shelter,
is the opposite.
It is super quiet, like zero noise pretty
much, which Evan and I loved.
Like we would go in and we'd do some
(11:28):
cleaning and scooping the litter boxes and
then we'd like groom the cats.
And when I first started they called me the
reader because I would take my book and I
would sit and read and pet a cat.
There's always cats who went petting and
need petting and after I my cleaning that's
what I would do.
So that was a really good fit for us and
(11:49):
for Eva too.
She's very she has all kinds of sensory
stuff because of her autism and me I
consider myself HSP highly sensitive person,
so light, sound clothing, textures, that
type of thing.
One of her friends went with us and the cat
shelter was not a good fit for her because
she has OCD around like cleanliness and
(12:11):
it's it's dirty.
Okay, no matter how clean you try to keep a
cat shelter, it's dirty.
So she found like she couldn't do it.
That was not a good fit for her.
So you've got to consider these different
factors and don't feel bad.
If it's not a good fit, just move on and
find some place.
That is is what I say.
The other factor there is what your heart
(12:33):
calls you to do With the Feeding South
Florida, the hungry families.
I decided to donate money instead, like a
monthly amount, because my heart calls me
to do that, like a monthly amount, because
my heart calls me to do that.
I love cats.
I love them more now that I volunteered at
a cat shelter.
So it's like my heart really called me to
do that Now that Eva's at college, I still
(12:56):
go because I really like it and it feels
like a connection to her as well.
So what is your heart calling you to do?
When I was training dogs, I love dogs and
so I was like, oh, I'll go try that out,
like I'll volunteer, see if it's a good fit,
and I love dogs.
So you've got to see what your heart calls
you to do.
(13:17):
If your heart is calling you to go to
another country and volunteer and do a work
trip like that, go for it.
Go for it.
What is your heart calling you to do?
All right, let's get more specific about
how not to adopt a million cats if you're
volunteering at a cat shelter or dogs.
Actually, we went to the humane society the
(13:38):
other day because I get my dogs like flea
medication there and stuff.
It's it's lower cost than if I buy it
online or something or at the vet, and so I
don't usually go in the section with all
the dogs.
But Evan, her partner, were there that day
and so we went and visited the dogs.
And dogs are loud, like super loud.
(14:02):
They barky, barky, barky.
And I realized like, oh yeah, this wouldn't
be a good fit for me actually to volunteer,
the Humane Society, which has, you know,
all kinds of animals, cats and dogs mainly,
but bunnies too and that type of thing.
But also it's like, oh, I wanted to take
all those dogs home.
All of them Like, oh, you're so cute, oh,
you're so cute, oh, you're the cutest, like
(14:24):
all of them.
So it was hard.
So how not to take the dogs and cats home?
My top tip is have one at home who is old
or antisocial, that doesn't get along with
other cats or other dogs.
Dogs particularly are, you know, you can
integrate them into a pack, but sometimes
(14:44):
they don't integrate and you have to take
the dog back or something.
That's a way to tell.
Sometimes you foster a cat or dog, you do a
trial and if they don't fit then you can
take them back.
But my 14 year old cat she still has not
adjusted to the kitten we adopted at like
six months from the shelter because she
(15:06):
wasn't getting adopted, like pretty much
all of her cohort had been adopted, but her
we, we really loved her.
So we thought, okay, let's take her home,
see how she does.
My old cat still doesn't like her.
Like they have sort of a neutral
understanding, let's say.
But the little one still wants to play with
the old one.
(15:26):
The old one's like eh, get away, hisses at
her and stuff.
So it helps to have an older animal at home
that doesn't get along with other animals.
That stops me a lot from taking cats home.
There's definitely some that I would have
adopted.
Mambo, who's this gigantic cat with like
(15:47):
one cloudy eye, smokey.
I was there the night he came in, this
little gray and white, adorable kitten.
I would have adopted him.
Somebody adopted him before me because he
was so adorable.
There was one oh my gosh, I don't remember
his name.
He was this little white cat with blue eyes,
so it was Siamese somewhere in him and he
(16:07):
would jump and catch flies Adorable, okay.
I was like, oh my God, this is a great cat
to have of mosquitoes and flies in Florida.
He got adopted super fast too.
So sometimes that can help if you just wait
a couple weeks or a couple months and you
say, okay, let me see if this cat gets
adopted and then, if they don't, I'll
(16:29):
reconsider it.
So you just sort of put it off for a while.
That can help you talk yourself out of it.
You know that they're safe.
You can visit next week or tomorrow,
however often you want to go.
The other thing that stops me is they cost
money.
Vet bills, food animals are expensive where
(16:49):
I live I don't know where you live, but
where I live it takes some money to support
them, to take them to the vet and do
anti-flea stuff and their heartworm.
And yeah, that stops me.
Sometimes it seems like the fur sort of
triples every time you get a new animal,
(17:10):
even if they're not long haired cats.
It's like oh, the fur somehow is all over
the place.
It doesn't just double when you get that
extra cat, it like triples.
So that stops me too.
I don't want any more fur.
So those are my top tips for volunteering
and how not to adopt a million cats.
When you volunteer at a cat shelter, okay,
(17:31):
that's it.
You can go and enjoy them at the shelter,
know that you're going to see them next
week and hope that they get adopted before
you adopt them.
All right people, I hope you are healthy
and safe.
I'll talk to you soon, peace.
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