As animal lovers, we should love all kind of animals, especially the unfortunate one such as homeless or neglected animals. Sometimes unwanted cat or dog is thrown away from the family, making it left behind on the side of the road without proper home or shelter.
This problem may move you to do bigger part of action, which is making an animal home shelter. Making an animal shelter can be hard work, but honor and emotional satisfaction are worth the effort. Here’s the basic on how to make animal home shelter, especially for dogs to help you begin!
How to make animal home shelter for dogs
1. Know your specialty and community
Take a look at your neighborhood. Is there already another animal shelter? What is it? If it is specialized for another animal besides dogs, that’s okay! You can start right away! But if there is already someone who focuses on dogs, maybe you want to have a specific specialty. For example, you only want to focus on small dogs or elderly dogs. This is not only to differ you with others but also to fulfill the need of your community. And remember that this job is not a competition. You have to work and cooperate to reach wider and help of all these homeless animal as much as you can!
2. Determine the accommodations you want to offer
There are some options that you can pick:
- Newly built dog home shelter: which can be expensive since you have high start-up costs but easier to maintain
- Indoor shelter in exiting structure: which is cheaper than the newly built but harder to keep it clean and maintain.
- Outdoor: which is cheap, stress-free, but need more attention to the sanitary. If you happen to have the shelter in voluntary or community space, you need more coordination since you work with other people and need to have a backup plan whenever the place has to be moved. Also, not every type of dog is suitable to live outdoor. If you want to have an outdoor shelter, you may consider having Labrador Retriever, Rottweiler, or even German Shepherd and more which are perfect dog as outdoor pets.
- In your home: it will be easier to take care because you may only able to adopt one or two dogs due to the limitation of space. This is a good start for you to get experience!
3. Treat it like a business
Though this shelter is made for an honor reason which is to help the wellbeing of animals, it is still counted as a business. Treat it as the way it is because that’s how you keep your shelter going. As a business, then the next step is to create your budget. Know what you need to have and what cost you. Get your finances and set up the budget to cover the cost and expense.
Remember that you need to spare your budget for building maintenance (even if you have it in your own home, not rent a building), supplies for animals’ needs such as food, bed, cleaning materials, disposal management, and more!
Does it make you freak out to know how much it will cost you? Calm down! There are so many ways to find money. You can spare your income as start up the funding, take out business loan to the bank, apply for government grants by associating with national animal welfare, or even fundraise in your area and community. There are so many kind people out there, reach them out!
4. The needs
Take your notes! These are some basic and important needs that you need to fulfill for your dog home shelter. You can go add more, depending on what you think you need and what suitable for your condition. You just have to make sure all of the items will be useful for you to take care of the dogs.
- Food
One of the most important needs is food. Acknowledge yourself about dog’s diet. For short, dogs eat at least twice a day. The portion can depend on the dog’s size, but commonly each of them eats a quarter to two cups of food a day. Different age of dogs also has a different need for nutrients and type of food. For example, puppy requires the type of wet food to eat. So make sure you give the suitable food for them! - Food bowls
You also need food bowls, tray, and litter pans to feed them up. Make sure you have enough bowls for them or prepare to have more because sometimes the dogs, especially puppies like to play with it and damage the bowl. - Grooming supplies
For grooming, you need to stack up some lines like towels, washcloths, and blankets, shampoos, brushes and combs, haircutting and more. Grooming supplies is important to keep your dogs healthy, clean, and good-looking! - Collars and leashes
One of the important habits for dogs is to take them on a walk! And to do that it will be easier for you to have enough leashes and collars. Having multiples leashes may be more efficient. - Plastic bags
We usually miss out this one; plastic bags! Not only for store some supply, but you will also need this to pick up the dog waste, especially when you take them out for walks. - Vaccination access
In some region, dog vaccination, especially for rabies, is mandatory by the government. So check out your local laws, and try to find a vet to get the access to vaccinate your dogs.
That’s all on how to make animal home shelter for dogs that you need to know. The list can go on and on but these steps above are the basic first step you can consider and prepare. Anyway, thank you for having such a big heart to start initiating a home shelter for homeless dogs. Hope your shelter can turn into reality!