Staff Treatment

 

In May the DAWG Board decided to terminate a number of long term employees, plus 2 more resigned. The turnover coincided with the rehiring of the DAWG trainer in March under a 90-day contract. The DAWG trainer was terminated in 2016 by the previous Board President. 

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This makes the list of staff turnover as of June 2017:

- Shelter Manager terminated
- Adoption Counselor gave notice
-Asst Kennel Manager terminated
-Vet Tech left
-Volunteer Grant Writer left

 

In addition, the DAWG kennel manager promoted in early 2017 was demoted and a kennel attendant promoted to take her place.  After that, the demoted employee was terminated. The new kennel manager is being mentored by the DAWG trainer, works professionally with him, and works closely with him at the DAWG shelter to train the DAWGs with his methods. See training methods here.

 

Volunteer Treatment
 

In April the Board decided to significantly change volunteer rules at the shelter as part of their experiment in trying to quiet the dogs being kenneled. This decision was made without doing any outreach to the volunteers or stakeholders. The Board held 2 meetings with the long term volunteers (usually called Leads). In these meetings some very upsetting things were said about the volunteers by staff members. This resulted in 4 of 9 leads stopping their dog walking volunteering work. A fifth lead was told not to come back to the shelter the next month for pointing out the effects the new rules had on the dogs and other problems at the DAWG shelter.

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Because most of these leads were working with the large dogs, this means that those dogs are not getting more than 1 walk a day unless they are very lucky. More here.

 

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