Program areas at PAWS
PAWS provides services for homeless cats and dogs, those at-risk of becoming homeless, and pet owners in the twelve communities we serve and in the outlying communities. Additionally, PAWS provides outreach, education and support to pet owners, provides affordable spay/neuter, wellness clinics, and preventatives to pets of low-income residents, rescue cats and dogs from high kill shelters in Georgia and Puerto Rico and advocates both locally and at the state level for animal welfare in our community and statewide.Two of our most important programs are the care of our communities homeless, abused, and abandoned cats and dogs and our PAWS Cares community veterinary clinic for low-income pet owners, including spay and neuter, wellness exams, preventatives, and life-saving vaccines. In 2022 we placed 422 stray & unwanted cats and dogs at the shelter places 98% of them into forever homes. Additionally, we provided 255 pet owners with free pet food and supplies through the Pet Food Pantry, performed 1016 spay/neuter surgeries for commnunity owned pets. Reunited 52 lost pets with their family, saved 161 cats and dogs from being euthanized in high kill shelters in the south, and assisted 1954 pets from low-income households, pets of survivors of domestic violence, pets in need of housing while their owners battle temporary homelessness, and extended stays in the hospital. PAWS provides numerous benefits to our community. We work to humanely address the issues of animal control by partnering with our town and their animal control officers to care for the lost, abandoned, and unwanted cats and dogs.We work with the community at large to match pets with loving homesthrough adoption services and we help provide quality veterinary care to every animal who enters our facility. PAWS maintains a firm commitment to educate the local community on the matters of pet care, animal safety, and the importance of spaying and neutering, animal immunizations, and disease control. Additionally, through various programs and services we help to strengthen the human-animal bond of hundreds of pet owners each year.Today PAWS offers the following programs and services:1.Services for lost and found and stray/at-large dogs and cats2.Owner surrenders to our community members who cannot keep their pets3.Adoption. The care and placement of homeless cats and dogs. It is why we started the organization and why we continue to today. It is paramount to our mission.4.PAWS Cares Clinics AND community wellness programs - this incudes rabies vaccinations and microchipping, preventatives, veterinary exams and Spay/Neuter Program.5.Pet Safe Program - a program to help victims of domestic violence, those experiencing temporary homelessness, and/or have been admitted to the hospital, so they can safely board their pets.6.Foster Program & Fospice Program (hospice for elderly pets)7.A Home for ME - animal transport program with partner rescues in the South (Puerto Rico & GA)8.Home to Home - an alternative to surrendering your pet to the shelter9.Pet Loss Support Group - Online