The love of animals keeps eighth graders Jill Flink and Amber Moffit busy by volunteering their time at the Mower County Humane Society.

From 3 to 6 p.m. every day, volunteers are needed to feed, play with and clean up after the animals. These two spend as much time as they can helping out. Friday and Sunday are open house days when the public can come and see the animals and possibly adopt an animal. The girls like to show and tell the public about the different animals' personalities. They become involved with the humane society from friends who volunteered their time.

"I used to see the animals when they were housed at the fairgrounds. I saw the volunteers helping and it looked like fun, " Jill said.

From their involvement, each of the girls has adopted animals through the humane society and have taken in animals for foster care. Amber has adopted a springer spaniel and a Labrador and she has two other dogs as well. Jill has a French bulldog and several cats she adopted. Besides the dogs and cats, Jill has a hedgehog, a chinchilla, a hamster and 12 birds. Her mother feeds the animals and Jill cleans up after them.

These two love animals and spend much of their free time with them. Jill shows dogs through 4-H and Amber goes to dog shows.

"Dogs just want to please you. They get so excited when you play with them. Sometimes they can get a little rough, but that is only because they are so happy to see you," Amber said.

Amber fostered a very smart border collie and she was happy to see it adopted. Jill has taken in some dogs for foster care, but her dog, Tobey, is more high maintenance and gets too excited and breathes hard when other dogs are around.

"It is fun to hang out with the dogs. When we hear that people are looking for a dog, we can usually suggest a pet for them," Amber said.

The two are very happy with the dogs that they have adopted through the humane society. Jill's dog came from a rescue group. Amber got her dog when it was almost adopted by someone else.

The two wish more of their peers would volunteer at the humane society, as the help is always needed. "It can take two or three hours out of your day if no one is else is helping you clean up after the animals. It goes quicker when you have more help. Our parents drop us off and we walk to the humane society from Ellis school when the days are nice," Jill said.

Amber keeps track of the adoption papers for the dogs at the humane society and her mother, Mary Moffit, takes care of the cats' adoption papers. The both aspire to be vet technicians when they are older. Their advice to others is to try out volunteering at least once and they will probably get hooked on the animals.

"It's fun," they both agreed.

Sheila Donnelly can be reached at 434-2233 or by e-mail at newsroom@austindailyherald.com