Volunteers assist the Cattery staff with the daily duties of maintaining a healthy and happy temporary home. Volunteers load washers and dryers, fold laundry, wash food & water dishes and clean litter pans. They are also needed to wash windows, scoop litter boxes and watch for problems on the cattery floor.  

Minimum requirements: Basic understanding of cats and their body language and behavior; the ability to work around strong odors and cleaning chemicals; a willingness to clean and a desire improve the lives of the cats.

Highly desired:  Volunteers willing to make a regular weekly commitment

Cattery Companion and Greeter
Volunteers spend time in the cattery playing with cats, petting them, grooming the ones who enjoy it, alerting the staff to messes or problems that need attention, helping to answer questions about specific cats, showing potential adopters how to find information about a cat they’re interested in, replacing collars, filling water bowls and scooping litter pans as needed.  

Minimum requirements:  Comfortable interacting with the public and knowledge of cats in a shelter situation, professional attitude.

In order to prevent disease our dogs need to have sanitary kennels. This ensures potential adoptive families will be confident that their future family member has had the best possible care in their stay in Bastrop.  Kennel cleaners will assist the Kennel staff with the morning cleaning. Duties include, but are not limited to: washing water buckets, food bowls, blankets, kennel walls and floors. Clean runs need to be set up with water and blankets. This job helps Kennel staff give special care to animals who are ill or are recovering from spay/neutering .

Minimum requirements:  Must be able to lift 25 pounds, some bending and stooping; ability to work around strong odors and cleaning chemicals. 
Highly desired:  Volunteers willing to make a regular weekly commitment from 8:00 am until 11:00 am

Dog Walkers spend quality time with dogs to get them used to interaction with people. They direct the dogs energy to walking, working and playing with them in yards or spending time in quiet areas, depending on the dog’s needs. This is instrumental in the socialization process. Dog walkers also help with basic training, as well as assisting with meet and greets with adopters, and aiding adoption staff and volunteers in selecting an appropriate pet for a potential adopter.

Minimum requirements: Able to physically control dogs on a leash; a basic understanding of dogs and their body language and behavior, a willingness to take dogs out for at least 30 minutes, and a love for animals.

Volunteers provide a great service to the staff by assisting with data entry, filing, organizing and answering telephones. Duties include but are not limited to working with the staff and public, answering phones and special projects as they come up. 

Minimum requirements: Communication skills and attention to detail

BCAS has many adoption events outside of the shelter to aid in finding our very special animals forever homes.  We need volunteers who can help run these events by taking animals to and from the locations, taking care of them, and helping with adoptions at these events.  Adoption events are fun for the animals but are fun for the volunteers and staff as well.  Along with these offsite adoption events we generally host a large event at the shelter 3-4 times a year.  We would need volunteers onsite that can assist the large numbers if adopters and fosters that come through our doors during those times.

Minimum requirements:  Communication skills and an ability to work well with others

We need someone who has an affinity for green growing things and knows how to keep them that way. Currently only our dedicated staff work on this when they can fit it in. Any help is welcome! We especially need someone to mow the grass and who could keep the lawn mower in good condition, too.

Minimum requirements: Familiarity with lawn and garden needs, and a willingness to work with what you find here.

Great in graphic design? Creative with a camera? Marketing-minded? Savvy with slogans? A wonder with web design? We need people who think outside the box to team up with our special events and marketing department to develop marketing materials, capture on camera the animals we care for and document events, and assist in many other ways. 

Minimum Requirements: The ability to create eye catching posters, advertisements and photographs to help our animals find forever homes

Are you crafty? Help make fleece toys or cardboard kitty scratching pads for our shelter animals or to be sold at our outreach events. Know how to sew? Mend and repair our worn dog and cat beds or make "adopt me" vests for our adoption events.

Minimum requirements: As needed or on your own time

Have you ever wished your backseat driver could only say “Meow” or “Woof”? Animal transporters help our shelter guests get to the groomer, to veterinary appointments, to a foster home, and to many other important destinations! Signing up for this position means you agree to be on the on-call list. When a request comes up, you can say yes or no depending on whether or not you can accommodate the request on any given day. Become an Animal Transporter to chauffeur the coolest cats (and dogs…and bunnies) in town!

Minimum Requirements:   Valid driver’s license,   Willingness to transport shelter animals in your personal vehicle

The Medical Volunteer position is an integral position at BCAS. Our Medical Volunteers assist our medical staff in providing excellent medical care to our shelter animals. In this position you will work alongside our veterinary staff, on site at BCAS, helping care for ALL sheltered animals.  This would include helping with vaccinations, assisting with surgery both post operative and preoperative, medicating sick animals, and helping out with the injured animals in our care.

Minimum Requirements:  The ability to lift over 50 lbs on a regular basis, 
standing for long periods of time, stooping, squatting, being able to handle blood and other bodily fluids.

This volunteer position is available to those who have a fondness for using social media to market our animals and different events we might have going on at the shelter.  You must be able to communicate effectively through writing, as well as have a creative side.

This position has many different time slots available.

BCAS is starting a hotline both via google voice and google mail to aid people in rehoming their pets without having to surrender them through the shelter.  This hotline has been named PAWS (Placing Animals Without Sheltering).   This position can be emotionally taxing so we ask that you only sign up if you are prepared to deal with some of the less than pleasant stories that we hear on a daily basis.  One requirement we ask is that you be willing to man the hotline in 4 hour increments. We will partner with rescues and foster homes to keep pets out of the shelter. We will also be looking for volunteers to be onsite to talk to people surrendering their pets or dropping of strays to try to have them foster the pet to keep it out of the kennels.  If you are a people person who is good at conflict resolution, please consider this position.

Minimum Requirements: Strong personality with excellent people skills, the ability to monitor the hotline from home, time to come to the shelter during business hours.