When I was in Secondary School I took part in Duke of Edinburgh which meant I needed to complete a certain amount of hours volunteering and I knew instantly I would love to spend my time with animals.
I started searching for places to volunteer and IDR was one of the first places that came up. I started volunteering in February 2020 for Duke of Edinburgh and as my family are all animal lovers we decided we would all go together to volunteer. We started going every Saturday and absolutely loved the experience of being able to give back and feel like we were making a big difference in the dog’s lives. We have a rescue dog of our own and couldn’t imagine life without her so helping others out there find their furry best friend is so rewarding.
I became a senior volunteer in April 2024 but have been volunteering at IDR since I was 14 and am now 19 with no intentions of stopping anytime soon as I can’t really imagine life without the rescue. I am at IDR 5 days a week, Monday- Thursday and Saturday. I do all sorts of tasks such as inductions, adoptions, cleaning the kennels, walking and training dogs, feeding the dogs, stock taking, sorting out donations, washing and drying, supervising volunteers and giving the dogs a groom when necessary. I enjoy learning new things everyday about the dogs and in particular the training side of things as I thoroughly enjoy training my own rescue dog.
The most enjoyable part of the experience is bonding with nervous dogs who soon come out of their shell once you spend time with them and earn their trust. It is so rewarding when you even get to the stage where they can happily take a treat or let you get them harnessed up for the first time. It makes you so incredibly proud to watch their journeys and see how far they’ve come.
North was an incredibly special dog to me. He was a Lab cross who came to IDR from Romania back in April 2023. He was the sweetest soul and I had an instant connection with him, He went to his first home soon after but was sadly returned a year later in April 2024. Seeing him back at IDR again was bittersweet as he’d ended up back in kennels again through no fault of his own. He is now living his best life close to a beach in a quiet rural neighbourhood and I couldn’t be happier for him.