If it takes a village to raise a child, then it takes an army to care for a bunch of dogs!
If you love dogs and want to feel great knowing you are helping to save lives, volunteer with us.
There are all kinds of ways to get involved at The Barking Lot. Check out how you can lend a hand by reading the descriptions below. If you’re looking for a true sense of reward and able to devote some time, please click on the appropriate form based on your interest, skill and time available. If you think you can help but don’t see a specific area that applies to you, email us!
Foster Parents
Foster parents are the determining factor in our ability to save lives. Our recruits need “Temporary Barking” while we find them “Permanent Barking”. To apply to become a foster parent, visit our Foster A Dog page and fill out the application.
Valet Barkers
Valet Barkers are responsible for taking our recruits on various adventures for socialization and exercise such as walks, hikes, runs, trips to the beach, to the dog park and to get baths. This requires some travel as you will need to pick up pooch, take to park (or trail, or beach) and then return pooch to his/her home base. Length of each excursion is dependent on the Valet Barker’s availability, but typically each outing will take between 1-3 hours.
Transporters
TBL rescues pups from all over Southern California and we must arrange travel for each pooch in order to get them to our facility. To do this, we coordinate transportation by either arranging “legs” with several transporters (for longer treks) or having one person drive round trip. Transporting requires a valid driver’s license and a chunk of time as it can take anywhere from 1-6 hours depending on the distance and traffic congestion.
Transporting is very rewarding as you get to be the first contact the new “Temporary Barker” has on his/her journey to a “Permanent Barking” space!
Event Barkers
The Barking Lot is nothing if not social! We host many events during the course of the year for a variety of reasons: fundraising, adoption drives, raise awareness, and some for no other reason than to have fun. We need people to help at these events and responsibilities can range from selling raffle tickets, handling dogs, screening applications, manning the booth, etc. Events are throughout the year and typically require anywhere from 3-6 hours of your time.
Data Entry
For those of you who may be allergic to fur, fear not, we even have tasks that don’t involve dogs! TBL has a number of administrative tasks to attend to. One vital one is data entry. We need volunteers who are able to input information into our database. This can be done from any location (i.e. your home, office, local coffee shop) as our database can be accessed remotely.
Data Entry Application
Home Checkers
Home Checkers are responsible for surveying a potential adopter’s home to determine the suitability for a given pooch. We supply our home check volunteer with the guidelines to execute a home check. Home checks take place at various locations depending on the potential adopter’s whereabouts and require travel to that location. Each home check takes approximately 20-30 minutes.
