Problems tracking animal experience hours?

[Dashin92]

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Hello! I've been lurking in this forum for a while and have finally gotten brave enough for my first post 🙂

I am experiencing a difficult situation regarding my animal experience hours. I started volunteering for a large, well-established rescue group when I was 17. Over the past four years, I have done pretty much everything - foster coordinating, event planning, animal/intake evaluations, online marketing, basic vaccines/worming/etc, adoptions, behavior assessments. Pretty much everything involved in a large rescue 🙂 I did not go straight to college after high school due to personal problems, and spent 4-5 days a week doing things for the rescue, sometimes 12+ hours/day.

The founder/director of the group and I became close personal friends. She was recently hired to take over a small, disorganized shelter that was on the verge of closing. She hired me as an Animal Caretaker and Medical Assistant - more vaccines, fecals, heartworm tests, etc. I also get to assist in spay/neuter days.

Over time, however, I have run into both ethical and personal concerns and am at the point of severing ties. The personal concerns are easy - the shelter is an hour away, my car eats, drinks, and breathes gas, and my schedule for next semester has me going to class every day. I just can't afford the gas and time up there, especially when it is not for true "veterinary" experience.

The ethical conflicts are mostly centered around adopting out dogs with behavioral issues, not disclosing those details, and offering no follow-up. I am very strong in my stance that it is wrong to knowingly adopt a project dog out to a family without informing them, providing adequate resources to educate and following-up. It sets everyone up for failure and is unfair to the family, and especially to the dog. There are other inconsistencies and concerns, but that is the major one for me.

With quitting the shelter job, I have my pay stubs to prove the hours that I worked. But - my main concern is getting credit for the TONS of hours I volunteered for the rescue group. I couldn't even give you a number, and I definitely don't want to overestimate. I'd go for 750, even though I'm sure it is more than that. I'm just worried that if I leave the shelter job, that the director will not confirm my hours. Animal experience is one of my stronger suits, so I'd hate to lose them :*(

Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? Any advice on how to handle it?

Thanks so much!!

 

[Cyndia]

Woo first post, welcome to a new life of non-lurking! 🙂

So I haven't dealt with anything similar, but it seems to me if you decide to leave, you could easily just give reasons that focus on the fact that it's expensive to commute to and difficult to fit into your schedule at the moment - the personal reasons you listed are more than enough to justify leaving a position. Especially if you're friends with the director she should be able to understand that, and as long as you don't kick up a giant fuss or do something terribly wrong, I really can't see her refusing to confirm your hours. Heck, even if you do kick up a fuss about the ethics issues, unless you were planning to ask her to write you a recommendation (which might be affected if she takes your ethics concerns as a personal attack on her method of running the society), I still can't see her refusing to confirm your hours. That would just be petty on her part. Additionally, I don't think VMCAS actually verifies most of the hours on your application, though you'll probably be asked about your major experiences in interviews, and as you've actually done the hours, I wouldn't worry too much. So yeah.. that's just my thoughts on the situation, hope it helps!

 

[that redhead]

The only reason you leaving the shelter would impact your application would be if the director said she would write you a letter of recommendation and now decides to back out. The number of hours that any applicant submits are essentially subject to the honor code. There are just too many applicants with too many experiences and circumstances for schools to contact each one to verify that an applicant is being honest. Don't worry about losing your hours 🙂

 

[DVMDream]

What Cyndia said.

I have never had a vet school call to verify hours, they don't really have the time for that. I could see if they were really concerned about it and seriously giving you consideration for an acceptance, then they might, but I have never heard of that happening. Just be mature and professional. Tell them that you can no longer commute with you school schedule out there and the you are going to have to leave the shelter beginning on "x date". The second thing is that this isn't your job, you are just a volunteer and while it seems like you do a lot to help them out as long as you handle it in a mature fashion, then I would not worry about it. Tell them that between school and the time it takes to drive out there plus the cost of gas that you can no longer continue on with the work. I had to do the same with the Humane Society I was volunteering at. I was only going out there once a week on a Monday to help with the horses and needed to be there by a specific time; tried to get my job to be more flexible and told them I can't work Mondays or need to leave by "x" time, but it doesn't work that way in a vet clinic.... you never leave by "x" time and we were short-staffed so getting Mondays off was hard to do. I finally had the just tell the barn manager that it wasn't working out because of my work schedule and the distance that I had to drive... gave her a two weeks heads up. Hope this helps! 🙂

 

[LetItSnow]

I agree with the others.

1) Do your best to leave on a positive note by focusing on the mundane reasons (time commute, availability, whatever).

2) Do your honest best to estimate your hours, and then don't look back or second-guess yourself. It won't cause you trouble down the road.