Volunteer spirit leads to founding of PAWS
By Robert Shearon / Staff Writer / When Sarah Beth Dawson retired from teaching, she started looking for volunteer opportunities.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 10:57 AM CST
“I’ve always loved animals,” she said in a recent interview at Sherwood Humane Animal Services. “I’ve always had dogs and cats.”
Dawson is founder of PAWS, the volunteer arm of the Sherwood Humane Animal Services.
One of her first volunteer efforts was to help an elderly woman who had four cats and a dog. When the woman had to go to live in a nursing home, Dawson, 62, found homes for the cats and adopted the 14-year-old dog.
He died three years later and she decided to get another dog. She found Sweet Tea, a Boston and wire-haired terrier at the Beebe Humane Society.
Then she adopted another dog from the Jacksonville Animal Shelter, using the Web site,
Petfinder.com, to help locate the pets.
She said she noticed that the Sherwood shelter didn’t participate in Petfinder.com and she started volunteering at the shelter, taking pictures to be used on the national pet adoption site. She eventually adopted a dog from the Sherwood shelter, a wire-fox terrier.
She said former shelter director Michael Shrewsbury encouraged her volunteer efforts. After Shrewsbury died in 2005, Robin Breaux became director and encouraged Dawson to start a formal volunteer organization for the shelter, which became PAWS (Partners Auxiliary Working for the Sherwood Shelter).
Dawson said there are now 140 to 150 members of the PAWS organization.
Volunteers help at the shelter. “Our mission is to help improve the lives of the animals,” said Dawson, as well as to make the jobs of the staff easier.
She said PAWS has an aggressive community outreach program.
One arm of the outreach program is the Canine Good Citizen Class, which is sponsored by PAWS
The class is held every Saturday at 2 p.m., although the final class of this year’s session is set for Saturday. The classes are held in the dog park behind the Sherwood Shelter at 6500 North Hills Blvd.
The fee for the classes is $75 for non-PAWS members and $25 for members. Dogs participating must be current on vaccinations. Early registration and payment are required.
The volunteers also provide copies of the Humane Society of the United States newsletter, KIND News, to six area elementary schools. The newsletter introduces children to a variety of pets and how to care for them.
“We don’t have time to go to every school and give a presentation,” said Breaux. “This way, we are reaching every child and we’ve got a voice in the community. Teachers love it.”
PAWS is working on a program to debut next year that will help elderly residents take care of their animals. Volunteers will offer to help with transportation to the veterinarian’s office and help pay for spay/neuter services and rabies shots. “And, if needed, we will provide food, and heartworm and flea and tick medicine,” said Dawson.
Breaux said the volunteers have helped a lot. “The animals are getting exercised more, pictures are on Petfinder.com, Walgreens [drug store] has a bulletin board, they built a Web page and [volunteers] are increasing awareness in the community [of the animal shelter].”
PAWS also has helped with fundraising and promoting responsible pet ownership, she said.
Dawson said requirements for being a PAWS volunteer include being at least 14 years old and completion of a volunteer orientation class. She said several safety and health issues are involved in volunteering at an animal shelter.
Breaux said the volunteers showed their worth with a fundraising appeal after a dog that had been shot in the jaw was turned over to them.
The cost of surgery and rehabilitation for the dog, Frannie, was estimated at between $3,000 and $4,000. Neither the shelter nor the volunteers had a medical fund that would cover that big an expense.
Breaux said the PAWS volunteers put out a request to the public through the news media and Internet, asking for help to pay for the surgery.
Within a month, the shelter had received $18,000 in donations. “We were able to get the dog’s surgery and therapy,” said Breaux, who noted that the dog subsequently was adopted. The remainder of the money is now known as Frannie’s Fund and goes to pay for medical expenses of animals at the shelter.
PAWS has a Web site, www.sherwoodpaws.org
