Precious Paws Rescue
Precious Paws Rescue is a non-profit, all-breed dog rescue based in Barrie, Ontario. We are dedicated to saving the lives of homeless pets by rescuing from pounds and shelters across North America. Our dogs come to us from situations where they are at risk of euthanasia - most often due to lack of space in a pound or shelter.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
All About Boo!
Although Boo didn't find a home in time for Christmas, she's still very hopeful that she'll find a home to start 2011 off just perfect! And a gorgeous girl like this certainly deserves a wonderful forever home!
Help us find Boo a family to love and call her own - share her story with your friends and family, post her on facebook and spread the word! Boo says thank you for your help and Happy New Year!
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Introducing Sweet Pea!
On each of their collars someone had written their names - Sweet Pea and Spanky. Unfortunately the shelter they ended up at had to make the difficult decision to euthanize the little Chihuahua, Spanky, as he had health issues and was not doing well. But little Sweet Pea was transferred to Precious Paws just in time.
Sweet Pea suits her name well. She's a darling little girl with a big personality. She demands attention from people she is comfortable around, even crawls up into her foster mom's lap and whines at her until she gets affection. Sweet Pea was at the vet today for her big dental surgery - being a senior Chihuahua she of course had bad teeth. But she's all fixed up now, with pearly whites to show for it - although not too many anymore!
We try not to dwell on this little girls past, especially because she certainly isn't! She's full of life and love and all she's looking for is a warm lap to curl up in for the rest of her retirement years. Little Sweet Pea will be with us in fostercare until she has found a permanent home of her own - and we're certain that won't take too long. Despite her age, we thinks she's sure to win some special person's heart - and she certainly deserves a happy ending!
Friday, December 17, 2010
Holidays Approaching Quickly!
Currently Precious Paws has 6 dogs and 1 cat up for adoption. Faith and Benny, two of those adoptable dogs, currently have adoption applications and we are very hopeful that they will be in their forever homes before or shortly after Christmas! What a joyous gift for them! The other 4 dogs and Roo, the kitty, are still very anxious to find their perfect forever families.
Roo is the pet I'd like to feature in this holiday blog! All you have to do is look at this adorable photo to know what a sweetheart this young boy is! Roo is a 10 month old black and white kitten. He is shorthaired and very clean (already littertrained). Roo has been living in a fosterhome with other dogs and cats, he's also had lots of exposure to children. He just loves everyone! Roo is an adventurous kitten and he would love to find a forever home with another young cat that likes to play. He'll keep you entertained that's for sure! Please share Roo's story with everyone you know this holiday season - let's help Roo get 2011 off to a great start - in a new home!
And as always, Precious Paws is in need of foster homes on an ongoing basis. With more and more requests coming in every day for dogs and cats in need - we are unable to keep up with the demand. If you've ever considered fostering or if you'd just like to learn more about what fostering entails - please contact us at preciousrescue@hotmail.com for more information!
Now for the thank you's! There are so many people to thank this year and I know I will forget many, so please forgive me! Thank you to all of our wonderful foster homes and volunteers who support our rescue work on a daily basis. Thank you to our webmaster Scott for all of your incredible work designing and maintaining our website! Thank you to Simcoe Veterinary Hospital for caring for all of our rescue pets with such love and generosity! Thank you to all of the businesses that have donated items for silent auctions, your services and your talents to support our rescue work! All of you have made this year the success that it has been - here's hoping that we make even more advances in 2011!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Kittens!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Golf Fore the Dogs Tournament!
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Faith
Faith is one of those positive dogs. Faith is a 3 year old Lab who has been living on the reserve without a real home since she was a puppy. Thankfully we had a foster home to accept her into, so when she was transported with 4 other dogs to be vetted, Faith got to stay behind in rescue. She is now doing wonderfully in a wonderful foster home. The sad part is that Faith has heartworm and today was her first day of treatment. To start with, Faith will receive a dose of Advantage Multi once a month for 3 months. She will then go on daily antibiotics for another month. Following that she will receive an injection of Immiticide which is an arsenic to kill the worms. Another month later she will get a second dose of Immiticide and 24 hours after that she will receive her third dose. All throughout this treatment Faith must remain quiet and inactive to prevent the worms from migrating to her lungs. Luckily Faith is a couch potatoe and she loves nothing more than to relax and be lazy!
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Intro to Precious Paws Rescue...
I know many people today are starting up "rescues" all over the place. They have a love for animals and they want to help and they want to do it on their own. This unfortunately often leads to "rescues" that are not spaying/neutering or microchipping before adoption, "rescues" that adopt out dogs before properly assessing them and "rescues" adopting out dogs to families that either are not screened properly/at all or families that are not suitable for the dog(s) in question. Without proper knowledge and experience in the rescue field, many people end up doing more harm than good unfortunately - although they may have had the best of intentions to begin with.
I decided to start Precious Paws only after I had gained many years of experience and knowledge in the field - and always with the understanding that I need to continue building my education and experience to better the lives of animals outside of and within the rescue. I started out working in a shelter - the Northumberland Humane Society - for more than 6 years. Following that I graduated from Northern College's Veterinary Technician program and shortly after that I moved to Barrie and started working in a veterinary clinic.
With the guidance and help of several reputable rescue groups who gave me the encouragement and support that I needed, Precious Paws Rescue was started. Today, I am still working in the field full-time as an animal care and control officer in Toronto and still running Precious Paws as an additional full-time but a volunteer position of course!
As I progressed with Precious Paws we had several people wanting to help out with volunteering and then fostering. Today we still have many of the same dedicated volunteers who first started out with us and many more as well! We are still a very small rescue and we're hoping to stay that way, although we are always looking for more foster homes. Our volunteers and foster homes are absolutely invaluable - without them Precious Paws Rescue would not be where it is today and we would not have been able to rescue more than 150 dogs - have them fully vetted and then adopt them out into wonderful, loving forever homes.
But we continue to network with many other reputable rescue groups - we know that we can never know everything there is to know about rescue and we are always open to new concepts and ideas. We are even now in the position to help out newer rescues by providing advice and support.
What would my advice be to others who want to start their own rescue? Get the experience FIRST. If you have time and space for animals in need and you want to help - partner up with a rescue that is already in good standing - they would love to have you! Foster, volunteer, do whatever you can to get a really good understanding of what is involved in rescue. It is NOT easy. Animals need proper veterinary care, emergencies and unexpected medical issues arise. If you are not willing OR not able to have each and every animal that comes through your rescue spayed/neutered, vaccinated and fully vetted - you should NOT start a rescue. You are not doing the animal world any good if you are not at the very least spaying/neutering animals before adopting them out. You are only contributing to the problem unfortunately. So if you don't have the resources to do this - partner up with a rescue that can! Your help is definitely needed! And then once you have the experience and resources necessary to run a reputable rescue group and you still have the passion and LOTS of time on your hands - only then should you consider starting your own rescue.
This year has been an important one for Precious Paws Rescue. First, we have partnered up with many incredible businesses that have been tremendously helpful to our cause. All of our animals now go to Simcoe Veterinary Hospital in Barrie and we could not be happier with the excellent medical care that they all receive (so happy in fact that my own dogs also go to the vets at Simcoe and many of our foster homes and adopters have also chosen the clinic for their animals!). We have also partnered with ICONIC, which is a graphic design company here in Barrie that now designs all of our promotional materials. Our logo, business cards, brochures, etc., are all designed by ICONIC and as you can see - they do stunning work!
There are so many other companies that I would like to thank for their continued support and most of them are listed on our website under the links section. Please check them out and support them too as we use and highly recommend all of them!
Second, we have also partnered with two umbrella organizations that are registered charities - Helping Homeless Pets (www.helpinghomelesspets.com) and K9RescueMe (www.k9rescueme.com). To be a part of HHP we have signed a rescue code of ethics which all member rescues adhere to. The benefits of joining these two groups are endless but one important benefit is that they allow us to accept donations to Precious Paws through each of them so that our donors can receive tax receipts and the donation goes directly to our veterinary bills.
Third, we have now applied for incorporation of a non-profit for Precious Paws and although we have not yet received our approved paperwork, I did get word that our application has been approved! Which is absolutely wonderful news! Our official name will now be Precious Paws Rescue Inc. and this is a very exciting step for us!
As we continue to grow we are expanding our fundraising strategies. Unfortunately rescue is costly - most of the dogs that we rescue cost us double what their adoption fee is. And often they cost us much more than that once they are fully vetted. So this year we are continuing with our monthly barbeque fundraisers at Sears in the Georgian Mall in Barrie. We are also again participating in the Woofstock Walkathon (another blog will be posted about this!). This year will be the first year for hopefully our annual Golf Fore The Dogs Tournament at Tangle Creek Golf Course in Barrie! With the help of our generous sponsors, we hope that this will be our biggest fundraising event each year and that we will raise lots of funds for the dogs that need us most!
So please keep checking this blog as I do my very best to keep it updated. I will be featuring our rescued dogs, happy adoption stories, fundraisers and events and much more! I'd love to hear from you as well - let us know what you want to know about Precious Paws!
And thank you again to all of our wonderful supporters - we certainly couldn't do it without you!
Cassandra
Founder - Precious Paws Rescue