PAALS, Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services, regularly holds volunteer orientation classes. Volunteer orientation provides interested attendees with basic information about PAALS, service dogs and most importantly, the many ways they can get involved.

“PAALS is always looking for passionate people to help prepare our dogs for the working world,” said Jen Rogers, executive director of PAALS. “Many people think they have to have dog training experience to volunteer for PAALS and that simply is not the case. Some of our best volunteers and fosters have never owned a dog of their own.”

There is no job description for a PAALS volunteer—some assist with special events while others tackle administrative duties. Some take cleaning shifts while the dogs are in training, and others foster the dogs on weekends.

“Right now our largest need is for weekend fosters and pup sitters,” said Rogers. “In order for the dogs to be successful, they need to have a balance of training and real world experience. When the dogs are with their weekend fosters they get a different perspective, and that is critical to their success.”

For more information about PAALS or the upcoming volunteer orientation, please visit www.paals.org or contact Jen Rogers at jrogers @paals.org.

PAALS is a 501(c)(3) whose mission is to enrich and empower children and adults with physical disabilities and social needs by training service animals and providing animal assisted educational and recreational activities. PAALS overall goal is to train assistance animals to help individuals with disabilities other than blindness or deafness. These animals can help with a vast array of tasks to assist with physical disabilities, and social needs as assigned assistance animals, or using them through quality programs to groups or organizations that can benefit from our assistance animals.