come for the dogs.
stay for the chaos.

We can’t save them without you. Whether you’re local enough to scrub a kennel or halfway across the globe with Wi-Fi and a skills to share, there’s a spot for you in the pack.

Volunteer
Volunteer

Pick Your Poison.

We've got a truly ridiculous number of ways to help. Some require showing up in person with closed-toe shoes. Others you can do from your couch in another time zone. All of them help save dogs.

Cartoon dog wearing orange sunglasses with black lenses, with a white body, green patches, and a green tail, on a black background.

Event Volunteer

We throw adoption and fundraising events all month long, and we need humans to run them. You'll hang out with our adoptable pups and fosters, answer questions about the org, and help match dogs with their people. Fair warning: you will want to take them all home.

Cartoon illustration of a dog wearing sunglasses, a pink harness, and using a pink wheelchair, on a black background.

TAP Care Team

Our most coveted role, and we're not exaggerating. The Care Team works hands-on with the dogs at our medical clearing facility in La Mesa - feeding, cleaning kennels, giving meds, doing laundry, and socializing the fur babies while they wait for medical clearance and a foster home.

This is the most active, most physical volunteer role we've got. You'll meet every kind of dog - strong pullers, bouncy goofballs, shy ones who need a minute to trust you. You need to be able to lift 30 lbs and feel solid handling a dog that pulls on leash. Morning and evening shifts, 365 days a year. No days off, because the dogs don't take them either.

Cartoon of a small dog with large ears, pink inside ears, and tiny tail, outlined in green with a playful expression.

Transporter

Transport is the most underrated gig we've got. Most of it is shuttling foster dogs to and from vet appointments (mostly in-house at HQ, thankfully), plus getting dogs to events when their foster can't make it. It sounds less glamorous than adoption events until you realize you get uninterrupted one-on-one time with a dog who's about to decide you're their favorite human. Bonus points for epic car sing-a-long playlists.

Cartoon image of a happy dog with orange and white fur, wearing a green sweater with orange hearts, sitting with tongue out and eyes closed.

Our Supply Coordinators keep the whole operation from running out of kibble. You'll work alongside the Care Team to take inventory, restock the feeding room, and pack foster bags so every dog leaves HQ with what they need.

Ideal for someone who can swing by TAP HQ in La Mesa at least twice a week (~5 hours of in-person time), and who's comfortable using Slack, Sling, and Google Drive to stay in the loop and track inventory.

Supply & Donations Coordinator

The dogs don’t care about your resumé.

They care that you showed up.

Every volunteer shift, every foster couch, every transport run, every donated hour of design work - it adds up to a dog who gets to live. That's not hyperbole. That's the math. We pull dogs from shelters where the clock is literally ticking, and we can only pull as many as we have hands to help.

So if you’ve been thinking about it: stop thinking. Fill out the form. We’ll take it from there.