A Pasco County high school student has made it her mission to save the lives of dogs in shelters.

Caitlin Torres seems like your average teenager. She love animals and wants to help them, so she volunteers at Pasco County Animal Services.

“I’m here every single weekend," said Torres, who is a student at Academy at the Lakes. "Sometimes I come after school. In the summer I’m here almost every day."

But she knows love isn’t enough to save all the dogs in the shelters. So she’s helping them out by using social media.

“I share them on Facebook so I can get them networked because I don’t want them to be here forever,” she said.

Sebastian is one of the dogs at the shelter that's in need of a forever home.

“Sebastian has been here for over a year, a little bit more,” said Torres.

She says sometimes Sebastian doesn’t even lift his head when people walk by, and she can't stand to see it.

“I feel like I’m strong now compared to when I first started volunteering," she said. "I was a mess, always crying."

But now she’s putting those emotions to work, socializing the dogs and getting her hands dirty, because even if she just gets one animal a home, that’s a success.

“We don’t want them to live the rest of their lives here at the shelter because they deserve to have a home and they deserve to be loved," she said.

Torres and her mother Ivette Ramirez have been volunteering at the Pasco County Animal Services for two years.

Torres is a junior in high school and will be applying to college next fall. She plans to study veterinary medicine.