Our "Best Friend" Honored Volunteer: Robert L.

What BFLA programs/events/volunteer roles do you find yourself participating in?

I volunteer with the dog team, cat team, adoptions and special events. 

Do you have a favorite story to share about an experience volunteering with Best Friends LA? 

There are a lot to choose from but I can only think of one where I applied what I had learned during a class that directly led to an animal being adopted.  I have a lot more experience with dogs than cats so I learned a lot from Samantha's Cat Behavior Class which I took in December 2016.  This is a portion of the thank you message that I sent to her in early January this year, 13 months after taking her class.  I try and practice what I learn whenever possible but am still surprised that they worked so perfectly in this case:

"I was volunteering at the front desk on Sunday and since it was a little slow at first I went up to the cat rooms to make sure all of the cats had received some form of interaction.  According to the white boards only one cat, Oliver, hadn't received any attention.  He was in one of the top condos and lying on the top shelf.  He didn't react when I opened his door so I slowly blinked at him for 1-2 minutes until he responded.  About another minute later he got down from the top shelf and moved to the front of his condo so I provided my scent to him and then slowly began to pet him on his whiskers and forehead for a few minutes.  I then played with a wand toy while he was inside his condo because he still seemed a little cautious to me.  A few hours later, I was entering the same room to showcase a different cat to a customer when another volunteer was closing Oliver's door.  She was with a couple who was interested in Oliver but decided to look at other cats since he stayed on his top shelf and showed no desire to interact with them.  I told them my recent experience with Oliver and decided to "exchange" customers with the other volunteer.  I then repeated the same steps with Oliver and had the also couple repeat the same interactions individually with him.  I then put him on the ground and played with a wand toy and then gave the wand toy to the customer.  They decided to adopt him a few minutes later.  I am fairly certain that Oliver wouldn't have been adopted if I hadn't taken your class (Sam's class) and gotten lucky due to my fortuitous timing in entering the room."