i volunteer at an animal shelter.
[{"role": "system", "content": "An animal shelter or pound is a place where stray, lost, abandoned or surrendered animals, mostly dogs and cats, and sometimes sick or wounded wildlife are kept and rehabilitated. While no-kill shelters exist, it is sometimes policy to euthanize sick animals, and any animal that is not claimed quickly enough by a previous or new owner. In Europe, of 30 countries included in a survey, all but four (Czech republic, Germany, Greece, and Italy) permitted the killing of healthy stray dogs. Critics believe the new term \"animal shelter\" is generally a euphemism for the older term \"pound\". The word \"pound\" had its origins in the animal pounds of agricultural communities, where stray livestock would be penned or impounded until claimed by their owners. Some shelters even have sick tropical animals. In the United States there is no government-run organization that provides oversight or regulation of the various shelters on a national basis. However, many individual states do regulate shelters within their jurisdiction. One of the earliest comprehensive measures was the \"Georgia Animal Protection Act\" of 1986. The law was enacted in response to the inhumane treatment of companion animals by a pet store chain in Atlanta.\n"}, {"role": "user", "content": "I currently volunteer at an Animal Shelter during my free time."}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Well thank you for doing that.  It's kind of nice how people have changed the name pound, to animal shelter, to change the thought process associated with the word."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Yes it definitely sounds better!"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "I believe the phrase was coined when animals or stray livestock would have to be penned or \"impounded\" until claimed by whoever owned them."}, {"role": "user", "content": "That makes sense. When did animal shelters come to exist?"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Systems like shelters/pounds have been around a long time, however institutions like the Humane Society have only been around since the fifties when it was founded in Washington D.C."}, {"role": "user", "content": "The Humane Society is such a good cause. Do you know who started it?"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Fred Myers, Helen Jones, Larry Andrews, and Marcia Glaser all helped to found the Humane Society."}]