What an active day with a swimming lesson in the morning, rushing to the post office to send new winter boots to my sister (since she forgot hers) and then an animal shelter in Aldie where I have signed up to walk a dog and today was for an orientation and a training.

The shelter is called Friends of Homeless Animals (FOHA). Currently there are about 80 dogs and 48 cats on site. Their main goal is to find a home for the dogs and the cats.

Most of the dogs are placed in their run but the senior dogs have a separate "home". Each individual home has a front yard. It is conditioned and decorated with furniture. We were told that one even has a chandelier. We haven't seen yet since it's in the inner corner.

Each dog should be walked about half mile which takes about half hour on Saturday and also on Sunday. That is 40 hours of work to walk every single dog at the shelter per day. So you see the more volunteers mean the more hours each dogs can be outside. (So please help!) You can come to help on weekdays but this is not regular hours so you may be asked by the on-site staff. Most of the work on site is also done by the volunteers from cleaning, maintaining, laundry, bathing dogs (summer only), etc.

Today I walked Jolly and Molly. Jolly is a tiny Yorkshire Terrier who was too small to wear a harness and needed to be carried back to the run. (The dogs need to be on the leash all the time outside except in the gated play areas.) Molly is a Foxhound (I believe) who was just brought in, have been quarantined for 2 weeks and pulling me through the trail.

This is not an easy task. Let me warn you. There are procedures to make sure everyone is safe such as how to get a dog in and out the building or the run, keep the distance between the dogs, etc. At each run they have the dog name, their special needs and a color code indicating the level of difficulties to walk from green (easy), yellow and red (most difficult). I think Molly must be yellow! She hasn't got a color code yet since she is new. And it is okay to have your favorite or if you don't feel right with some dogs.

Every dog are so eager to be walked. The shy ones might not show much expression. Some are siblings and preferred to walked together. Some go nuts outside like a cat on catnip. But I am surprised that they get along with people so well.

I had a chance to talk to a couple volunteers. One of them has been volunteered for 9 years. She comes every Saturdays (except X'mas) and stayed late with other senior volunteers until they're sure that every dog has been walked.

If you're interested in adopting one, they will need to check your background. I am not sure the extent. If you already have one at home, you will be required to bring him/her/them to the shelter to make sure if they get along with the new one. And if you have adopted one from FOHA and are not able to keep the dog or the cat anymore, you need to return them back to FOHA. So they can keep the record straight. They open only on Saturday and Sunday for this. Or you can wait for the adoption events at retail stores in the area.

If you're interested in volunteering, you are required to have an orientation/training with them first. Please contact a staff at FOHA They always need help.

Oh and don't throw your old blankets away, they would like to have them.