Pawfee Podcats

Jen, formerly referred to as The Bunny Volunteer, graced us with her presence in this episode during her one month serving our humane society as interim Volunteer Coordinator. As a team member who volunteered for 8 years before becoming a staff member (and as a most excellent human being whom we'd all like to be when we grow up), Jen has valuable insights to share in this episode. We are pleased to announce that after her time as a staff member, Jen has now joined our Board of Directors!

Helping Hands Humane Society is an open admission shelter with contracts with city and county Animal Control. We take in over 6,000 lost and homeless animals each year. We are located in Topeka, Kansas and strive to also be a resource center for our community. We have a pet food pantry and just this year opened our Community Clinic which provides low-cost spays and neuters to qualifying individuals, as well as working with local rescue groups to get community and stray animals fixed. We have approximately 50 staff members and hundreds of amazing volunteers and fosters.

If you have any questions, comments, stories, or ideas for our podcast, please email us at [email protected] (Director of Philanthropy) or [email protected] (Communications Coordinator).

We're back! Apologies for the hiatus - it's been a busy season here at Helping Hands Humane Society, but five of our employees from varying departments just returned from the Best Friends Animal Society National Conference with LOTS of ideas and motivation to try some new things at our shelter! This episode is hosted by Grace, Director of Business Development and Special Events Emi, Communications Coordinator, and Shelby, Volunteer Coordinator (now collectively known as "Gremis") with a special guest appearance by Katie, Fundraising Assistant. In this episode we tackle language in response to several comments, memes, and social media posts we have seen lately. When we as a shelter start posting about how many animals are coming in and how full we are, there seems to be an immediate response from the community to blame and shame pet owners. While we do appreciate that perspectives have shifted away from blaming the shelter, we would rather all work together as a team to tackle the issues here, many of which have more to do with a lack of access to resources than malicious intent. We'd also invite everyone to remember that humans make mistakes, and all pet owners are human. We open up about some of our own very human moments and share valuable information we learned from a HeARTs Speak webinar about positive marketing as well as the Best Friends Conference about why positive marketing is really the way to go if you want to help more animals!

Helping Hands Humane Society is an open admission shelter with contracts with city and county Animal Control. We take in over 6,000 lost and homeless animals each year. We are located in Topeka, Kansas and strive to also be a resource center for our community. We have a pet food pantry and just this year opened our Community Clinic which provides low-cost spays and neuters to qualifying individuals, as well as working with local rescue groups to get community and stray animals fixed. We have less than 50 staff members and hundreds of amazing volunteers and fosters. If you have any questions, comments, stories, or ideas for our podcast, please email us at [email protected] or [email protected].

In this episode we interview long-time volunteer Jen, who just so happens to be an expert bunny owner and foster! She tells us all about how she got started volunteering at HHHS, what she's done to advocate for bunnies, and what it's like to foster buns and have buns as pets. We also talk about the recent experience at our shelter of having 14 rabbits abandoned in poor condition. Jen and her daughter Amelia helped immensely in that situation!

In this episode, you're hosts Grace and Emi (Gremi) are joined by coworker, Volunteer Coordinator, Shelby for some updates on adopted pets, painting offices, shelter animals, and more. They are interrupted several times - Lindsay the Behavior Specialist jumps in impromptu to talk about another shelter dog sent to be trained in search and rescue! And Kim the Adoption Counselor pops her head in to let us know staff favorite, cat Channing is going home!

If you have questions, ideas, stories to share - please contact us at [email protected] or [email protected].

After a VERY busy season at HHHS, we're back at podcasting with an episode including interviews with TWO of our esteemed coworkers - relative newbie, Shelby, and 5-year dedicated employee, Marrissa! We dive into how they came to work at HHHS and what they do day-to-day at the shelter. Of course, the interviews also include some wacky, funny, and interesting stories that always come along with humane society life. As usual, we are excited to share behind-the-scenes information about working at an animal shelter as well as career insights to those who might be considering a job with animals!

Don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions or stories for our podcast at [email protected] and/or [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In this episode we interview the fabulous Cynthia Huebner about the dog she adopted in 2020, Doug. Doug was a staff favorite here at HHHS and suffered from some doggy anxiety. He landed the perfect home with Cynthia (she says he picked her), and we get some updates about how he adjusted to his new home and how he's doing now. We wanted to cover this topic because August is Clear the Shelters month, and a huge population of shelter animals needing homes is large breed dogs who have some behavior quirks. 

Get ready for a stellar and highly interesting interview in this episode of Pawfee Podcats! As humane society workers and animal lovers, we were very intrigued by but pretty clueless about working police dogs...hence why we were so excited to interview Chris, a local K9 Officer, all about his police dog Rebo. Interviewers on this episode include your regular hosts, Grace and Emi (Gremi), as well as HHHS Behavior Specialist Lindsay, who had a lot of great questions for Chris. 

We also give an in-depth office cat update - Grace is currently office fostering a very special kitten named Starfish who's dealing with a lot of injuries and issues, but the whole team is pulling for her. Your support is much appreciated!

Let us know if you have more questions for K9 Officer Chris, if you watched Fraggle Rock growing up, or if you have any other feedback for our podcast by emailing us at [email protected] and/or [email protected].

In this episode Gremi (Grace and Emi, your hosts) have the honor of interviewing HHHS summertime employee Mason; a Kansas State University student who has worked in the Helping Hands medical center the last three summers. Mason begins vet school in the fall! She has a lot of great insights and experiences to share with us this episode; also Grace recently learned how to give vaccinations to kittens so that she could vaccinate the foster babies she has at home - if you ever wanted to know just what the experience is like, give this a listen. Of course, we give an office cat update, and we have a whole new crew of kitties! Summer shelter life is hectic and crazy, and we're taking you along for the ride with us.

It's that time of year again...colorful fireworks fill the night skies, but anxiety fills many of our canine friends as they hear unfamiliar booms and screams. In this episode, Grace and Emi interview Margaret (joint name, Gremargie) all about Independence Day at an animal shelter. She also gives advice on summer fun with your pets - how to keep them healthy and safe during the hottest time of year. Whether it's errands around town, camping, fishing, or walking by the lake, there are important facts to know before you go!

We're currently having a Hairy Pawter and the Forever Homes dog adoption spell (magically discounted adoption fees) through June and will be holding a $20 4th of July Microchip Special the week leading up to Independence Day. Call 785-233-7325 to schedule your appointment for a $20 microchip!

We also give you a kitten-filled Office Cat Update and Amos pupdate. As always, don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions or stories for our podcast! [email protected] and [email protected]

This episode Gremi (Grace and Emi, employees of Helping Hands Humane Society and your hosts) has the pleasure of interviewing Natalie, our summer intern from Washburn University. This internship is her last step to graduation, and she's been a huge help the last month or so! We often say we just need more hands, more time, and Natalie has absolutely provided that by assisting us with creating graphics for fundraising events, editing videos of adoptable dogs, and she's now working on a transcript to a lost podcast episode that had an issue in recording! She's the dream intern, basically, and you get to hear fun stories about her childhood, fostering kittens, and the work she's doing at HHHS on this episode. She'll be here through the summer, so please reach out to us at [email protected] and/or [email protected] if you have any questions at all for Natalie or about interning at a humane society, non-profit events, fundraising, social media, etc.! We'd be happy to try to answer questions on our podcast.

As you'll hear us explain in our opening remarks, we are moving to once-a-month podcast episodes as we transition into a busier in-person season at HHHS post-pandemic. Look for a new episode on the first Thursday of each month!