In just a few short hours, you can change a dog’s life forever – no experience necessary!

Fences for Fido is an award-winning, non-profit organization that builds donor-funded fences free of charge for families who keep their dogs on chains, tethers and in small enclosures. We also provide:

• A warm, insulated dog house
• Spay/neuter services
• Critical vet care

In the past 10 years, Fences For Fido has unchained over 2000 dogs in NW Oregon, central Oregon and SW Washington!

BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP!

• We are actively seeking volunteers throughout our service region to help us continue our work. IT’S FUN!
• You don’t need any fence-building experience
• You can volunteer as much or as little as you like.

There’s no minimum number of builds or hours for being part of our pack. However, because our fence builds are considered construction sites, you must be 18 or older.

DO YOU HAVE FENCE-BUILDING OR CONSTRUCTION EXPERIENCE? We’d love to welcome you as a Crew Leader to help draw up simple fence plans, be in charge of pick-up and delivery of supplies, and lead a fabulous group of volunteers in building our fences. Again, you can volunteer as much or as little as you like, and we provide all training, equipment, and materials.

Register to be a volunteer here – then check out our calendar to sign up for your first build!

Volunteer Q/A

Once you sign up, please feel free to join one of our regional FFF Facebook Pages!

FFF Lower SW Washington Region Volunteers (Clark, Cowlitz, Skamania, Wahkiakum Counties)

FFF Upper SW Washington Region Volunteers (Lewis, Thurston, and Mason Counties)

FFF North Willamette Valley Region (Portland/surrounding areas) Volunteers

FFF South Willamette Valley Region (Salem & surrounding areas) Volunteers

FFF Oregon Coast Region Volunteers

FFF Central Oregon Region Volunteers

{ simplecaddy type=editcart nextcid=362}

Dear Media Friends:

The story of our work and the deserving, endearing Fidos we free makes GREAT news. It’s positive, it’s visual, it’s community-oriented, and the change is so tangible you can see it with your eyes and feel it in your heart.

Fences For Fido has grown at a phenomenal pace, due in large part to the media coverage we’ve received. We gratefully welcome stories about our mission, our tireless and compassionate volunteers, our impact on communities, and our work to open hearts, change minds, and strengthen laws to improve the lives of our furry canine companions.

To make your important job just a tiny bit easier, we’ve compiled this brief fact sheet with our media policies, our contact list, and our pertinent data.

Media Policy:

1. Please do not reveal the actual physical address of our clients who receive fences. Our clients are taking a hugely positive step to improve their dogs’ lives, but the issue of chaining can evoke powerful public reaction. We want to shield them and our Fidos from any unwelcome interference. We also ask for your discretion so wide shots of the property don’t reveal the street name and house number.
2. Please seek client permission to use their names or images. We love it when our clients want to talk to the media about their reason for getting a fence and the positive changes they’ve seen in their newly-unchained dog. Many clients are happy to share, but we must respect those who want more privacy. We are guests on their property, and often we have gotten there through a lengthy process of trust-building.
3. Please seek out our appointed spokespeople. We have the best volunteers in the world, and we hope you’ll talk to them about why they volunteer and how it changes their lives. For any information about our organization, its data, budget, policies, history, etc., please talk to our spokespeople listed on this fact sheet.
4. And, of course, be safe. A build is essentially a construction site with chained dogs. We have appointed lead volunteers at every build who can guide you about a given dog’s approachability and any potential hazards.

Contacts:

For more information, please contact our media relations coordinator:

• Kelly Peterson, Co-Founder, Board Chair, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , 503-869-9422

Fact Sheet:

Mission Statement: Fences For Fido has a mission to improve the quality of life for dogs who spend most or all hours confined to a chain. We provide a fenced yard, insulated dog houses, spay/neuter, and critical veterinary care.

Date Founded: May 2009, when 10 friends built our first fence for a Portland dog named Chopper.

Nonprofit Status: We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Management and Governance: We operate with volunteer fence builders. The organization is overseen by a volunteer board of directors. We are a stand-alone organization not affiliated with or under the umbrella of any other organization.

Funding Sources: 100% donations. We hold one or two major fundraising events each year. We partner with great local businesses and organizations for events that raise funds and awareness. We also seek grants from private and corporate foundations.

Our geographic reach: Oregon and SW Washington. We have volunteer crews located in Oregon and southwest Washington.

What’s wrong with tethering: Long-term chaining presents numerous risks to dogs, their families, and their neighbors. Dogs are social animals. Their wild ancestors live in packs, and when dogs live with humans, we are their pack. A dog on a chain is separated from his pack and forced to live a solitary life, which can cause emotional and behavioral anxiety and fear-based aggression. Chained dogs are vulnerable to attacks by other dogs and wild animals, and are exposed to physical dangers from entangled chains that can cause strangulation or prevent the dog from reaching food, water, and shelter. The Centers for Disease Control and the American Veterinary Medical Association warn that chained dogs are as much as 8 times more likely to bite.

Who qualifies for a fence: There are no financial qualifiers. While most of the families we serve are low-income, we do not ask for financial information. We build the fence based on the dog’s need.

What does a fence cost? It’s free to the families we serve. We never charge our clients for our work. It is our gift to them as they embark on a new way of living with their furry friends. With donated labor and bulk discounts on materials, FFF’s hard cost is $600-$1000 per fence.

How we hear about Fidos in need: On our website, there’s a request form where families can apply for their own fence or anyone who observes a chained dog can give the us the address and other information we need to initiate contact with the family. We also hear about dogs through local law enforcement, shelters, service agencies, and animal control agencies.

What happens after the fence is built: We have a saying: “Once a Fido, always a Fido.” And we mean it. Our clients sign an agreement to keep their dogs off chains for the rest of their lives and to call us if their wily Fido has learned to open the gate or climb over. We have ways of fixing that.

About spay/neuter: We offer a free spay/neuter to every dog that receives a fence.

HB 2783: Fences For Fido was instrumental in getting this bill through the Oregon legislature and was present when Governor Kitzhaber signed it into law. The new law became effective January 1, 2014. It limits the time a dog can spend on a tether and clarifies requirements for shelter and humane care.

“Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives.” John Galsworthy 

The price we pay for loving dogs is that we will have to say goodbye someday – and always too soon. We each know this all too well. In fact, it’s been said that this may be the only real flaw of dogs – the painful fact that their lives are so much shorter than ours. 

Today we all feel this familiar sadness because we’ve learned that Chopper – Fences for Fido’s very first unchained dog – died this week due to complications of cancer. With the passing of this stately, gentle old friend, we want to pause and remember what a mark Chopper left on our world. He was once a lonely, scruffy backyard dog. But everything changed, practically overnight, when a group of Portland friends met Chopper and realized they could do something to help. What they did changed Chopper’s life and his family’s life, and then that change rippled across the community and just kept going. Chopper galvanized a mission and a passion that continues to grow today. 

Effect January, 1, 2014

Drafted and supported by a broad coalition, the law adds an important tool to address the public safety and animal welfare problems presented by chronically-chained dogs in communities across Oregon. Like all laws, this one is intended to be enforced by appropriate law enforcement officers. Fences For Fido does not have enforcement authority.

Download a copy of this article *** Click Here ***

Anti Tethering Law and How FFF can help you video *** Click Here ***

 The law does the following:

Limits tethering to:

1. Ten hours (in a 24 hour period) when dog is tethered to a stationary object;
2. Fifteen hours (in a 24 hour period) when dog is tethered to a running line, “zip line”, trolley, or pulley system;

By Patti Loverink, Fences For Fido Co-Chair

In 2009, a group of friends gathered together around a kitchen table and dreamed of an organization, which would be called “Fences For Fido.” On May 23 that year, together they built fence number one. They became the first volunteers for Fences For Fido. And even today—as we’ve unchained hundreds of dogs and expanded across more Oregon and Washington communities—every aspect of the organization is still operated, managed, produced and built… BY VOLUNTEERS. Every single person.

It doesn’t take paid staff to be buttoned up with a robust organization chart and committees overseeing every aspect and detail of Fences For Fido. What’s truly remarkable and worth repeating, reiterating, and restating, is that dedicated volunteers—who collectively give hundreds of hours each month—make all of this happen. Here’s a bit more about how we do it:

Kelly Peterson | Board Chair, Client Outreach Director, Co-Founder — Kelly is the Oregon State Director for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). As an accomplished advocate, Kelly has worked successfully in the Oregon legislature to pass a raft of bills to protect animals, ranging from wildlife and exotics to farm and companion animals. Kelly previously served as the Senior Vice President of State Affairs where she worked with HSUS state directors throughout the country championing animal welfare legislation and engaging like-hearted citizens to promote the protection of all animals.

Patti Loverink | Board Vice Chair, Fundraising Director — Patti joined the Fences For Fido board in 2011, focusing on marketing and fundraising for the organization and serving today as board fundraising director and gala chair. As the owner of a marketing communications agency, Patti applies her professional experience and expertise to help support and grow non-profit organizations. Patti is co-founder of Fences For Fido’s Unchained Planet project, dedicated to accelerating the unchaining movement by providing grants and mentorship to start-up unchaining organizations around the country.

Michelle Blake | Executive Director — Michelle has been with Fences For Fido since its founding in 2009, serving as a board member, board co-chair, and as the Client Outreach Coordinator and Crew Leader who established our presence in Marion and Polk Counties. More recently, she's served as FFF's grant writer. As a longtime advocate and nonprofit leader, she's worked to pass federal and state laws to protect animals and helped establish Salem's first high-volume spay/neuter clinic. Drawing on her background in news media, fundraising, and public policy, Michelle develops and coordinates FFF's public messaging, ensuring that we grow strategically to meet the ever-changing needs of our clients, volunteers, donors, and the dogs who bring us all together in this labor of love.

Karen Van Winkle | Board Member, Treasurer — Karen first joined Fences For Fido as a volunteer fence builder in Central Oregon and after relocating to the Willamette Valley, she expanded her volunteer involvement by overseeing the cat food distribution and delivery of our organization’s monthly pet food bank on the Warm Springs Reservation. Soon after, Karen combined her love of Fences For Fido with her professional skills, by assuming the role of bookkeeper and just recently was elected to serve as Fences For Fido Treasurer, bringing 20+ years of accounting experience and expertise. Karen has been involved with animal related nonprofits for over 15 years and has served as a Board member at other nonprofits, as well as holding the role of Treasurer/Bookkeeper.

Jennifer Rackstraw | Board Secretary — For more than 20 years, Jeni has been involved in animal advocacy at the local, state, and federal levels. Since 2003, she has worked as an administrative law judge for the State of Oregon, conducting administrative hearings for agencies, boards, and commissions. Since 2007, she has also served on an Appellate Panel for City of Portland police and firefighter disability benefit cases. She has extensive experience training and mentoring administrative law judges and has presented at multiple conferences regarding administrative law practice. She has a J.D. from Lewis & Clark Law School, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Animal Law Review, the nation’s oldest law journal devoted exclusively to animal legal issues.

Vince Baker | Board Member, Co-Founder, Information Systems — As one of the original co-founders and earliest volunteers of Fences For Fido, Vince serves as crew chief and information systems committee lead. As an engineer for a high-tech company, Vince is able to lead the information systems for Fences For Fido by overseeing the website, volunteer sign up systems, contact management systems, and fundraising software system. His roles for Fences For Fido bring together his key passions of animal welfare, love for building, and service to community.

Telma Pombrol | Board Member, Chief Materials Officer — Telma was born in Connecticut to Cuban parents and lived in Venezuela for about 20 years. She has always had a passion for animal welfare and while in Venezuela helped rehab injured wildlife, from an Ocelot kitten that was caught in a barbed wire fencing to squirrels, parrots, fawns and even a trio of baby caimans. Telma earned her degree in Tourism Business Administration and moved back to the U.S. where she started a professional career. She has since left the private sector and now works for the State of Oregon Department of Justice Child Support Division in Salem. She devotes her free time caring for her furry family and volunteering for Fences For Fido where she serves as a client outreach coordinator and the chief materials officer.

Gina Clemmer | Board Member — Founder and architect of Clinic HQ software. HQ is a specialized veterinary software for high-volume spay/neuter clinics. She spends her days working with clinics to support their clinic management. She holds a Masters of Science Degree from the University of Iowa where she focused on Geographic Information Systems (GIS). She was a consultant for PetSmart Charities for ten years and launched Clinic HQ in 2011. She is deeply committed to making the world a better place for animals using technology. For the past five years, she’s volunteered for, and coordinated, high volume clinics on Native American reservations (Laguna and Hopi). This is her hobby and passion. Recently, she secured a surgical mobile rig, First Nations Veterinary, through her charity, Charity HQ, to bring high volume spay and neuter clinics to the Warm Springs Reservation and Navajo Nation. Gina is a mom to an amazing daughter and a committed foster mama through One Tail at a Time. Gina lives in Portland and is an enrolled tribal member in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

Eileen Dennis | Board Member — After a career in public accounting, Eileen spent many years doing accounting for the movie industry. Fast forward over three decades, Eileen felt compelled to help animals. She began volunteering with various animal welfare organizations, including shelters and transport organizations, which often took her to the Portland, Oregon area. Combined with being able to work on several movies in Portland convinced her and her husband to relocate to the Rose City. A graduate in finance from the University of Wisconsin, she has worked as a CPA in several states and several industries. Eileen and her husband live with their dog Sophie and cat Smokey.

Chelsea Lane | Board Member — Dedicated both her professional and personal life to animal advocacy by choosing a career in veterinary medicine and spends her free time fostering and volunteering with animal centered orgs, having previously acted as volunteer medical coordinator for a local dog rescue. Chelsea has worked in veterinary medicine as a veterinary assistant on and off since 2007. In 2018, after years of working on the clinical team, she took on the role of Practice Manager at her veterinary clinic in Portland. Overall, her favorite part of veterinary medicine is working with the special needs of senior dogs and cats. Chelsea began volunteering with Fences for Fido through their wellness and spay/neuter clinics, and loves assisting with such a meaningful cause. She shares her home in Portland with 1 lovably imperfect rescue pibble, 1 very bossy cat, and a recent adoption of a puppy from Warm Springs who is quickly outgrowing her older brother!

Theo Perez | Board Member — A Warm Springs tribal member and director of Warm Springs Commodities, embodies the definition of a heart of service and compassion, contributing to his community on behalf of Warm Springs Community Action Team, Reservation Impact, Neighbor Impact, and a commitment to overall community health. He is also a small business owner, artist and much more. Theo is also a proud and devoted father of an incredible son. Theo raises the bar when it comes to positive impact and is deeply grounded to his community and offering solutions and resources in everything he does. Fences For Fido is so honored to have Theo as part of our Board. He is truly the very spirit of love in action.

Becky Robbins | Board Member — First joined Fences for Fido in 2009 as a fence-building volunteer. In addition, for the past 16 years she serves as a foster team lead for the Family Dogs New Life Shelter Foster Dog Program in Portland, OR. With Family Dogs she focuses on adoptions, securing foster families, fundraising and media outreach. Professionally, Becky has a 25-year career in partnership marketing and PR with a focus on leveraging corporate and small business relationships to support the needs of the community. Becky loves to travel the world and run her refurbished furniture store space that supports animals. She shares her home with Henry and Blossom, her rescue pit bulls.

Shauna Sherick, CVT | Board Member — Shauna earned her degree in animal science and veterinary technology in 1994 and since then has worked at a local veterinary hospital. She specializes in surgical procedure assisting, anesthesia, dentistry, and farm animal veterinary medicine nursing care. In 1996, she began volunteering as a veterinary technician at the Portland Audubon Society Wildlife Care Center and earned certification through the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council to become licensed in wildlife rehabilitation for the state of Oregon. In 2012, wanting to combine her love of veterinary medicine with her passion for helping farm animals, wildlife, and nature, she founded Wildwood Farm Sanctuary & Preserve. Shauna also works closely with the Yamhill County Soil & Water Conservation District and has received grants to restore and preserve the white oak prairie ecosystem at Wildwood Farm Sanctuary & Preserve.

Fences For Fido Code  of Conduct

First: Thank you! Fences For Fido relies 100% on volunteers to do the life-changing (and often life-saving) work of this organization.

We want each person to feel fully supported, welcomed, and introduced to who we are and what we do. This document is designed to convey our FFF “culture.” You might consider it our credo—our statement of how we work together and represent the organization. Combined, our work and our demeanor essentially ARE Fences For Fido.

In every role with Fences For Fido, courtesy and professionalism are top priorities. Fences For Fido’s mission is based on compassionate acts to improve the lives of our Fidos and their families. We model that compassion in all of our interactions with clients, the public, each other, supporters, and even detractors.

1. 1.Communication with each other is courteous and positive.
2. a.Fences For Fido volunteers are extraordinarily dedicated. Many spend as much time on FFF work as they spend on their full-time jobs. This commitment deserves a cooperative, supportive environment. We will treat each other with respect in all of our communications.
3. b.We will honor the vital contribution of each individual, whether their work is in the field or behind the scenes.
4. c.In airing complaints, we will use direct communication that clearly names the issue and looks for possible solutions.
5. d.Because indirect complaining is unproductive and harmful to group morale, we bring complaints to the person(s) with the ability to address them, and we approach them in a problem-solving spirit. If that fails to resolve the issue, volunteers are encouraged to bring the issue to a mutually-agreed third party.
6. e.Personal differences are inevitable, but profanity, name-calling, and other disrespectful communication are unacceptable and threaten our supportive environment.
7. 2.Communication with clients is professional and nonjudgmental.
8. a.Client Outreach Coordinators (COs) are the point of contact with our clients. Volunteers will defer direct client communication to the CO. When interacting with clients, we will be positive and nonjudgmental.
9. b.To respect the privacy and boundaries of our clients, volunteers will wait for the CO and Crew Leader to arrive before entering the clients’ property.
10. c.We protect the privacy of our clients at all times and in every way. Under no circumstances may a volunteer divulge personal client information in any form.
11. 3.Electronic communication is positive, professional, and respectful.
12. a.Facebook and the website are the closest thing we have to a storefront. Every post or comment must be courteous and represent the organization in a positive light.
13. b.FFF emails will be courteous and on-topic and may not be used for any non-FFF solicitation or messages.
14. c.The public FFF page is for public messages. FFF maintains closed Facebook groups for various committees and volunteer groups to communicate behind the scenes. FFF announcements should be fielded to the Facebook managers for posting.
15. 4.Media outreach is referred to board members.
16. a.Public Relations and Media Outreach are handled by the Board of Directors. Volunteers will refer media requests to the Board of Directors.
17. b.When the media attend our events and builds, we welcome volunteers to talk about their personal experience of volunteering with Fences For Fido.
18. 5.While we don’t expect volunteers to share all of our views, we do ask volunteers to support FFF’s animal welfare
19. a.Like most animal welfare groups, we support the wider cause of animal welfare by serving plant-based foods at our events. This policy covers food purchased and served by FFF at its officially-sponsored events. Volunteers can choose what food they bring to a job site or order at a no-host event.
20. b.We sometimes see our Fidos in very sad conditions. We do everything we can to improve their circumstances, but we accept our limitations. Sometimes even the police aren’t legally able to remedy a bad situation, and some animals would not be adoptable if we could get custody of them. Volunteers will try to trust in our process, knowing that our ongoing contact with families can continue long after a build.
21. c.Fences For Fido supports spaying and neutering as a means of protecting animal health and fighting overpopulation. We strongly encourage, but do not require, our clients to allow FFF to spay/neuter their dogs.
22. 6.Volunteers support FFF policy and protocol.
23. a.Fences For Fido’s Board of Directors is bound by certain legal and moral obligations with regard to policies, finances, mission, and public reputation. It’s impossible for every board decision to please everyone, but volunteers will respect the board’s administrative authority to make decisions on behalf of the organization.
24. b.COs and Crew Leaders are responsible for overseeing their projects. We understand that there are many ways to complete a job. While we’re open to improvement, our protocols are developed from our experience on hundreds of fences. Volunteers will follow the directions of Crew Leaders and COs.

To maintain the culture of cooperation and respect that keep us moving ahead with our mission, FFF reserves the right to address issues as they arise. Depending on severity and circumstances, violations of these guidelines may be addressed with a gentle reminder, a warning, a temporary suspension of duties, or even termination of the volunteer’s relationship with FFF.

While it’s impossible to cover every potential situation, we hope these general guidelines will create a friendly and professional environment for all of our volunteers. Our Board members welcome any questions or concerns about these guidelines.