Average Review
12 reviews
Would you recommend Community Animal Network?
Community Animal Network is an organization truly dedicated to the missions of animal adoption and animal health awareness. Being able to work towards that mission through my volunteer hours made me feel that I was truly making an impact in my community.
Beyond this, though, the veterinary program that I was a part of gave me invaluable hands-on experience with the cats. Many veterinary programs for high school and college students restrict the work available to you due to liability issues. However, DiAnna, founder of Community Animal Network, sees a bigger picture and realizes that interactive work is the only way to train the future vets of the world.
Of course, the internship program requires extreme dedication and attention to details, but I can say that I feel more prepared for college and vet school because of it. So, if you are a dedicated volunteer aiming to work in the animal health fields, I would highly recommend working for the Community Animal Network.
I have been volunteering at Community Animal Network for over a year starting in December 2016. The sanctuary gives hands-on animal care experience. The director teaches how to administer oral and topical medication to cats. I was able to learn how to properly restrain cats thanks to DiAnna. I also learned feline grooming and nail trimming. There were several opportunities for volunteers to visit veterinary clinic. We watched spay and neuter surgeries for 2.5 hours. I had a chance to observe a dental surgery at The Cat Care Clinic. In addition, the cats at the sanctuary are very cute!! They are very sociable, and I am sure you will enjoy being a volunteer there.
Last but not the least, the director gives useful insights about resume writing and the importance of the cover letter. She will teach you how to make your resume look professional! We practiced mock interviews to prepare for an actual interview. Thanks to the coordinator DiAnna, I have found a job at a veterinary clinic.
I had the opportunity to volunteer at Community Animal Network’s cat sanctuary over the summer. Caring for the cats there was very rewarding and I was also able to learn a lot. I was able to practice multiple skills including proper handling and restraint, giving different kinds of medications (pills, topicals, and oral liquids) to treat various conditions (including fleas, stomatitis, spinal stenosis, hotspots, and feline acne), and grooming (brushing and nail trims) on the cats. DiAnna is very knowledgable and experienced when it comes to animals, especially cats, so I was able to learn a lot from her. There were also multiple chances to go on mini field trips to some of the cats’ veterinary appointments as well as a spay and neuter clinic. This is a great opportunity to gain hands-on experience caring for cats as well as learn a bit about how an animal rescue is run. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking to get their foot in the door for animal related positions.
Working at the cat sanctuary under the Community Animal Network polished my skills and knowledge in caring for cats, both in the medical field, and for their daily care. I worked as a veterinary medical intern for six months with the Community Animal Network's director Diana Pfaff-Martin. While there, I learned, and performed simple veterinary procedures such as giving subcutaneous fluids for dehydrated cats, giving pill medications, topical ointment application for skin cancer in a cat, and insulin injection for diabetic cats.
Thanks to Community Animal Network, I was able to land a job, and work as a Veterinary Assistant with one of Orange County's Feline Specialist at the Cat Clinic. The experience, and knowledge that Community Animal Network provides is great, and very useful for people who are wanting to work in the animal field.
On my first day of Volunteering for
"The Community Animal Network," it was like no other. DiAnna was all prepared and ready to go with teaching me, about how things work in the sanctuary. One of the very first things that I learned, was how to give pills to cats. DiAnna puts a great deal of emphasis on how to give medication. DiAnna was very hands on, showing me how to open their mouth, where to place the pill inside the cat's mouth, etc. Through all of it, DiAnna was encouraging, telling me it just gets easier with practice. I am actually pretty good at it now!
Apart from doing litter boxes and giving pills, I learned a lot of life-saving techniques. At one point, a older cat, Kiki, was in his last few weeks of life. Kiki needed to be given fluids and be forced fed. As a high school student, I had never given a cat fluids.
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