TRAVEL REWARDS

Voluntourism trips allow you to fulfill your passion for helping dogs while traveling to exciting destinations

By Olivia LaBarre

Your ideal vacation itinerary might include sightseeing, shopping and relaxation — but have you considered adding animal rescue work to the mix? That’s exactly what voluntourism, or combining volunteer work with vacationing, is all about.

OPPORTUNITIES AWAIT
You may think of voluntourism as a media buzzword, but the actual concept behind the term is so much more than a trend, according to travel company owner Liz Longacre. “These trips can be somewhat life-changing for people. You’re giving back. You’re doing something different. You’re completely immersing yourself in the culture,” she says.

Longacre has experienced the life-changing aspect of voluntourism firsthand. She spent part of her honeymoon in Thailand volunteering at an elephant sanctuary for abused and neglected elephants. She cared for and bonded with the animals, and made friends with other volunteers in the process. That experience ultimately led the former lawyer to choose a different career path and create a company that, she says, “is about doing anything that’s good for animals on your vacation and avoiding anything that exploits animals.”

Her company, called Your Time Travels, offers a number of animal-focused vacations, including trips that involve volunteering with animal welfare projects. These types of opportunities allow a traveler to give back while taking in all a destination has to offer. “You can get your pampering and sightseeing. You get to go see other countries, but you’re also engaged in something that’s really unique and authentic, and you’re immersing yourself in the culture and helping animals in a unique way,” explains Longacre.

If you’re a dog lover, there are several volunteer opportunities available, locally and abroad, for you at shelters and spay/neuter programs. Your Time Travels offers an international option that combines a stay on the beaches of the Caribbean with volunteer time at the Street Dog & Cat Rescue in St. Martin. Animal-loving travelers can get the best of both worlds by staying at a luxurious hotel and participating in tourist adventures such as zip lining, and also committing part of their trip to helping dogs and cats.

Volunteer opportunities at the Street Dog & Cat Rescue include helping workers rescue stray dogs, cats, kittens and puppies; holding pet food drives and distributing food to people who feed strays; or even creating flyers or helping with office work. In addition, volunteers can help with the spaying and neutering program that the rescue put in place to help control the burgeoning stray problem in a place where other free sterilization programs don’t exist. “The stray dog population is a big problem in a lot of countries,” explains Longacre.

GLOBAL NEEDS
“It is unimaginable; there’s no way to wrap your mind around it unless you’ve seen it,” agrees Nola Lee Kelsey, the volunteer coordinator for Care for Dogs, a dog rescue about 20 minutes outside of popular tourist destination Chiang Mai, Thailand. The organization is tackling the area’s overwhelming stray dog problem, which includes the abandoning of dogs in temples — a common occurrence in Thailand. “If you tried to just rescue on your own while traveling, you wouldn’t be able to get more than a hundred feet,” says Kelsey. “You’d be looking for an organization. At least at Care for Dogs, we’re focusing on certain temples and we’re helping one dog at a time in an organized manner, so we can keep track of the situation.”

Although they are still considered strays, “temple dogs” are a different phenomenon. Many of them are fed, given water and looked after by people. So after the dogs are spayed or neutered, or receive vaccinations or other medical attention, Care for Dogs workers return them back to the temples from which they came. “We’re not just housing stray dogs. You just couldn’t do it — there are too many,” explains Kelsey. “By re-releasing them to [the temples] where they’ve grown up and where they’re comfortable, we’re keeping room in the shelter for dogs who have no shelter at all and need to find homes. Dogs who are found in hotel parking lots, or have been hurt or poisoned, they can’t be returned back to where they came from.”

Volunteers can help at Care for Dogs in many ways, including helping to vaccinate and feed temple dogs; transporting temple dogs for spaying, neutering or medical attention; and playing with, bathing, grooming and walking dogs at the shelter. The organization also offers opportunities that aren’t as hands-on with the dogs, such as writing letters for fundraising and support, and helping with educational programs for the public.

LOCAL TRIPS
If you’re not up for international travel or want to take children along on your trip, you should consider destinations such as Best Friends Animal Sanctuary near Kanab, Utah. It is just a drive away from many national parks and monuments, including the Grand Canyon. “Most of our volunteers who come in the summer especially, are on a family vacation, with small children,” says Susan Wright, volunteer coordinator at Dogtown, a part of the sanctuary that houses nearly 500 dogs.

Once volunteers go through an orientation, they’re set up with their choice of volunteer activities that range from cleaning, grooming and walking the dogs to landscaping and maintenance. Dogtown welcomes kids ages 7 to 18 years of age, although they’re not always allowed to work directly with the dogs.

“We’re doing some humane education for young people between the ages of 7 and 12 years old as a way of offering them something while they’re here in Dogtown and not having them around some of the dogs that don’t have real good manners at times,” explains Wright.

CHOOSE YOUR ADVENTURE
If you decide to take a voluntourism trip, make sure you give yourself plenty of time for planning; the wait list to volunteer can be about a year long for popular destinations such as Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. Also take the time to find an opportunity that is right for you. Check with the organization you’re thinking of volunteering with to find out more about its opportunities and requirements. “Stop and think about the day-to-day activities,” recommends Kelsey. “Some people don’t register that they’re making a commitment to go in and work hard. Most volunteers are great at Care for Dogs, but we’ve had some that sign up for a week and they only last about four hours. It’s noisy and out of control if they’ve gotten there before feeding time.”

Food, travel and lifestyle journalist, and seasoned voluntourist Charyn Pfeuffer admits she was overwhelmed when she arrived to volunteer at the no-kill AWARE (Animal Welfare Association Rescue/Education) shelter near the village of Sumpango in Guatemala. Pfeuffer would be volunteering and staying with about 300 dogs and 100 cats. “You get there and you’re sleeping in pretty modest accommodations. It’s like shared dorm rooms with volunteers. The kennels of dogs are on three sides of this structure,” she explains. “They all start barking at about 6 a.m. You wake up to that, and there are also episodes during the night where dogs are barking. So maybe for a couple of nights you do not sleep well. But on the third or fourth night, something switches in your head, and you can just sleep through the craziness.”

Pfeuffer’s volunteer days usually went from about 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Her routine consisted of cleaning kennels, and feeding, bathing, watering and walking dogs. “It was pretty hard work,” she admits, and on top of that, the work was dirty. “Pretty much everything that I brought to wear there I trashed before I left. It comes with the territory. As long as you have a good pair of rubber boots and some rubber gloves you’ll be fine. You just need to be prepared for the situation.”

Volunteers also need to keep in mind that they may come across some disturbing and difficult situations. Pfeuffer recalls the time someone dropped off a basket of 10 puppies that had been left in the middle of a road. “The puppies were just a few days old. When we got them we didn’t know whether or not they were going to live. They were just full of worms,” she says. “For a couple of days we had to dropper feed them and keep a close eye on them, make sure they were warm. Another volunteer and I set up a system where we would wake up every two hours throughout the night to make sure the puppies were okay. And they lived, so I think it helped.”

COMBINING WORK & PLAY
Your voluntourism trip can be just as challenging as you want it to be, but it doesn’t have to be all work and no play. Even though Pfeuffer stayed at the shelter itself and worked very hard, she and her fellow volunteers still took time for themselves. “We volunteered five days a week. Between the volunteers, we figured out which two days we were going to take off,” she says. On their downtime, the volunteers went to the nearby Mayan village of Sumpango or took a 45-minute trip to Antigua to see the sights and enjoy the local culture. “We really appreciated taking a break and not hearing all the dogs barking, but then coming home,” says Pfeuffer. “It was a nice contrast. It was good for peace of mind to take a step back.”

Even if you’re not as adventurous as Pfeuffer, there are still a lot of dog-focused voluntourism options out there for you. “There are so many ways you can help out at a sanctuary or whatever place you’re volunteering at,” says Longacre. “Anything from maintenance to paperwork to feeding the animals to cleaning.”

For travelers unable to make its four-day volunteer commitment requirement, Care for Dogs offers a socialization tour, which allows visitors to learn about the work done at Care for Dogs. After the 20-minute tour, visitors have the opportunity to play with and brush the dogs. This helps the dogs become more comfortable around new people. Best Friends Animal Sanctuary takes socialization a step further by allowing volunteers to take a dog for a day or overnight. (Many of the hotels and rentals in the nearby town of Kanab are animal friendly, and the sanctuary also has a limited amount of cabins and cottages for rent.) These visits help dogs get used to human interaction and even sounds that they may not be familiar with, such as TV sets and flushing toilets. With a lot of dogs coming from puppy mills, and hoarding and animal cruelty cases, Wright says the dogs are coming in a bit shut down, fearful, timid and under-socialized. “The volunteers are a big part of helping domesticate those dogs. It’s really critical to let them have that exposure so we can adopt them out successfully,” says Wright.

Also remember that when it comes to accommodations, you don’t necessarily have to rough it. “Some people make it sound like a guilty pleasure to not sleep on the shelter floor at night,” says Kelsey. “Why not go back to a place where you can wash off the dog hair at night? There’s nothing wrong with being comfortable.” She also points out that volunteers who stay in comfy hotel rooms are still giving back. “Just by their presence, just by staying at local hotels while working at an animal rescue, they’re binding that rescue to the community. Also, when they go home afterwards, they’re national ambassadors because they’ve learned about a problem and they’re going to tell people about it.”

REAPING THE REWARDS
When you first step into a volunteer situation, your initial instinct may be to run far away toward a hammock on a beach. “The first hours can always be crazy. The new dogs are hyper around you, and you don’t know what you’re getting into,” says Kelsey.

But, if you stick with it, says Pfeuffer, the rewards of volunteering with animals on a vacation will outweigh the difficulties or inconveniences. “I highly recommend my experience,” she says. “It’s definitely hard work, but it’s great to know that even for a window of time, you’re helping make life better for these animals.”

Pfeuffer ended up going back to her home in Seattle, Wash., with a physical reminder of her fulfilling experience: a dog named Manita, which is Spanish slang for “little sister.” The dog had been brought in by a couple of little boys from the local village who said that their grandfather had been kicking her, and that he wanted to poison her. The actual process of bringing Manita home was pretty easy, says Pfeuffer, because AWARE helped her out with it. “They actually ship animals all over the world for adoption,” she explains.

The key to getting past the difficulties of a voluntourism trip and reaping the rewards, says Longacre, is keeping an open mind and heart. “Really embrace the experience. There’s going to be a ton of things that are inconvenient. The hot water probably doesn’t exist and you might have to take cold showers. It might be a little bit dirty. Your accommodations might not be exactly what you want. But you’re only there for a few days, so just enjoy it for what it’s giving you and what you’re giving back.” Agrees Kelsey, “It’s just a question of how you stick to it and how you give it a chance to make it your own project and let it work its way into your heart.”

Olivia LaBarre is an award-winning writer and editor based in Brooklyn, NY. She can be reached at olabarre@gmail.com.

VOLUNTOURISM OPPORTUNITIES
Are you interested in taking a trip that involves working with dogs, but you don’t know where to go? Start with the list of voluntourism opportunities below, some which were mentioned in this article.

» Animal Welfare Association – Rescue/Education (AWARE)
Sumpango, Guatemala
www.animalaware.org

» Soi Dogs Foundation
Phuket, Thailand
www.soidog.org

» The Ark, Friends of Animals
Corfu Island, Greece
www.corfuanimalwelfare.com

» Baja Dogs La Paz
La Paz, Baja, Mexico
www.bajadogslapaz.org

» Best Friends Animal Society
Outside of Kanab, Utah
www.bestfriends.org

» Care for Dogs Foundation
Chiang Mai, Thailand
www.carefordogs.org

» Esther Honey Foundation
Rarotonga, Cook Islands
www.estherhoney.org

» Himalayan Nature Society
Dharamsala, India
www.hnsindia.org

» Animal Rescue Kerala
Kerala, Southern India
www.animalrescuekerala.org

» Bali Animal Welfare Association
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
www.bawabali.com

» Animal Welfare Karpathos
Karpathos Island, Greece
www.animalwelfarekarpathos.org

» Mozambique Animal Protection
Maputo, Mozambique
www.mapsmoz.weebly.com

Visit www.YourTimeTravels.com for more info. You can also find a comprehensive list of locations at www.TheVoluntaryTraveler.com.