Volunteer

We welcome anyone with a love for animals to join us. There are many different ways you can volunteer, and help is greatly needed in every capacity. You can make a big difference to a Cairn in need by giving your time and talents as a volunteer.

Volunteer Opportunities

You can help the cause in many different capacities:

  • Foster Home

Foster homes are greatly needed and appreciated. This is the most critical need in our rescue chain. We can only save as many Cairns as we have foster homes. All approved expenses are reimbursed. Please see our Fostering page for more information.

  • Cairn Rescue | Intakes

Volunteers who can I.D. Cairns in person or on websites, call shelters and surrendering owners or pull dogs from shelters and take to a safe haven (a boarding facility or vets office) are always needed. All approved expenses are reimbursed.

  • Transport Driver

Transporting rescue dogs to their foster homes. What could be more fun than that? Each dog is transported in its own crate provided by CPCRN. Drivers are given a detailed transport plan and reimbursement for tolls and mileage is available. Please complete our Transport Volunteer Form if you can help.

  • Transport Coordinator

Planning a transport involves establishing routes and meeting places from starting location to the foster home, and contacting potential volunteer drivers for those routes. Being comfortable online and experience with Microsoft Office and Excel required. If you would like more information about this challenging and rewarding role, please fill out the transport volunteer form.

  • Home Safety Inspections

A “Home Safety Inspection,” or a “Home Visit” as the final step in CPCRN’s five-part adoption process. Since CPCRN is a national Rescue program, much of our adoption process is handled through e-mail and phone calls. The home visit is truly the only chance that we have PRIOR to the placement of one of our Rescue dogs to ensure that the Cairn will be in a safe and loving home.

Volunteers are needed to conduct home visits in your area as well as in an administrative capacity.

  • Sponsor a Dog

As a Grandparent donor your donation will go towards a specific dog of your choice. As a Guardian Angle Donor your donation will do towards helping a specific dog in need of medical care.

  • Reference Checks

Volunteers are always needed to check adoptive and foster home references. This step in our adoption process is also essential to the foster home approval as well. The majority of checks are made via telephone — phone cards, instructions and support are provided by CPCRN.

  • Post Adoption

Volunteers are needed to follow-up with our adoptive homes, gather “Happy Endings” and provide support to families and their new Cairn buddies. Phone cards and training are provided.

  • Match-Maker

Volunteers are needed to arrange “matches” between available foster dogs and potential adoptive homes using resources detailing both dogs and applicants. Match-making involves contact with potential adoptive homes and foster homes. Training is provided.

  • Fundraising | Merchant Skills

Our fundraising efforts are an integral part of Rescue. We welcome anyone who can offer items to sell in auctions or through our Cairn Shopping Mall where we offer many hand-crafted items made by volunteers. Merchant Skills are needed to house items being sold within the mall stores, and send these out when notified of a sale (expenses reimbursed) and help with obtaining objects for auction.

  • Crafters & Artists

Artists and crafters can help our cause by donating art or helping with art that is needed for fundraiser projects. Donated hand-crafted or new items are used for our eBay or other online auctions.

  • Computers & Administration

Accounting and Database/Spreadsheet Skills are always needed in many capacities. Data Input or other administrative Computer Skills to support our rescue Teams. We also need Computer Graphics or Web Design Skills to help with many projects.

  • Marketing & Events

Marketing and Events volunteers are needed for Newsletters, Publications, Writing articles as well as helping organize, attend or develop events to promote Cairn Terrier Rescue.

  • Miscellaneous Skills

There are many other ways you can help rescued Cairns. You can make a big difference to a Cairn in need by giving your time and talents as a volunteer.

Volunteers are greatly needed and appreciated

We have no physical location, no brick and mortar structure that says Col. Potter Cairn Rescue Network. So where is CP? Look inside your heart. You will find it there. CP lives with every stitch a crafter makes, with every dot of glue or cut of the scissor. It lives with every keystroke of every e-mail, with every keystroke of every form we fill out, with every thing we create, with every word read on applications to adopt or foster, with every mile someone drives, with every shelter searched for Cairns in need, and on and on and on. CP lives within each of us and deep within the eyes of every dog that is in our care.