‘Paw partners’ across the US step in to aid overwhelmed animal shelters
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Jackie Valley Staff writer
| Las Vegas
As the morning progresses, a van coming from a sanctuary run by A Path 4 Paws arrives with a group of dogs. Volunteers lead the animals into the adoption center and prepare them to meet prospective new owners. The woofs of canines soon fill the room.
This is the scene every Saturday and Sunday – and on a good weekend, A Path 4 Paws will find “loving homes” for 20 dogs, says volunteer Marleen Szalay.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onIt’s heartbreaking to think about the many animals needing shelter services. Rescue groups help close the gap by housing and caring for these pets, and connecting them with new homes.
A Path 4 Paws is just one of the animal welfare organizations that exists in communities across the United States. Some organizations play a behind-the-scenes role, providing extra capacity, foster homes, and a pathway to adoption for animals of all shapes and sizes. Others address a root cause of overpopulation by spaying and neutering animals. Many organizations are run by people like Ms. Szalay – dedicated volunteers whose passion for animals’ well-being motivates their unpaid work.
Here in Las Vegas, The Animal Foundation – a high-volume shelter that receives about a third of its funding from local governments – regularly works with dozens of animal rescue organizations. Betsy Laakso, the shelter’s director of community engagement, says they are “paw partners” who help save the lives of animals.
A teary-eyed woman guides a dog with sad brown eyes into a crate as the woofs of other canines fill the room.
“Mommy loves you,” the woman reassures the dog.
This isn’t what the woman wants. It doesn’t seem to be what the dog, Vino, wants either. But the woman recently lost her home and has to move into a camper – without Vino. A Path 4 Paws, a rescue organization in Las Vegas, has offered to help find him a new family.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onIt’s heartbreaking to think about the many animals needing shelter services. Rescue groups help close the gap by housing and caring for these pets, and connecting them with new homes.
Minutes earlier, Marleen Szalay, a volunteer, had coached the woman through filling out intake paperwork with Vino’s best interests in mind. With enough information, “We’ll be able to get him in the right home,” she says.
As the Sunday morning progresses, a van full of dogs coming from the organization’s sanctuary arrives. Volunteers lead the animals into the adoption center and prepare them to meet prospective new owners. This is the scene every Saturday and Sunday, and on a good weekend, A Path 4 Paws will find “loving homes” for 20 dogs, Ms. Szalay says.
A Path 4 Paws is just one in a constellation of animal welfare organizations that exists in communities across the United States. Some organizations play a behind-the-scenes role, providing extra capacity, foster homes, and a pathway to adoption for animals of all shapes and sizes. Others address a root cause of overpopulation by spaying and neutering animals. Many organizations are run by people like Ms. Szalay – dedicated volunteers whose passion for animals’ well-being motivates their unpaid work.
Here in Las Vegas, The Animal Foundation – a high-volume shelter that receives about a third of its funding from local governments – regularly works with dozens of animal rescue organizations. Betsy Laakso, the shelter’s director of community engagement, says they are “paw partners” who help save the lives of vulnerable animals.
“Our relationship with them is pretty vital,” she says. “It helps us with the population of animals coming in here and is one more positive pathway that we can give the animals.”
And that population is booming. Through the end of October, The Animal Foundation alone had taken in 21,899 animals – more than two-thirds of whom were deemed to be strays – and transferred 2,323 to other rescue organizations last year. Large dogs are sitting at the shelter the longest, waiting an average of two weeks to get adopted, according to Animal Foundation data.
A Path 4 Paws, which relies entirely on donations, regularly picks up dogs from the shelter and independently tries to secure new homes for them. That’s where the volunteers come into play, fostering the dogs, ushering them to veterinary appointments, running the adoption center on weekends, and, of course, providing frequent cuddles. One person even donates carpet squares to be used in the crates.
The organization routinely has 150 dogs at its sanctuary in a rural area outside Las Vegas. Owners surrender them for reasons such as moves, financial difficulties, or health conditions affecting their ability to care for the animals. Other dogs wind up at shelters, which reach out to rescue organizations when they’re overflowing.
An adoption fee covers the cost of ensuring the dogs are spayed or neutered, dewormed, microchipped, and up to date on their shots, Ms. Szalay says, adding that the organization’s veterinary bills still end up being thousands of dollars each month.
“So many people help us in so many weird, different ways,” says Ms. Szalay, a former hotel executive who decided helping dogs would be her retirement purpose. She calls the work “rewarding” but also “heartbreaking.”
The volunteers running Bunnies Matter, another animal rescue organization in Las Vegas, feel much the same. On a Saturday morning, they’re arguably doing more hopping than the domesticated rabbits in their care as they facilitate adoptions, clean pens, provide snacks, and give attention.
Dave Schweiger, president of Bunnies Matter, says the rescue group started with six bunnies that had been dumped in his neighborhood. The six quickly turned into 24 bunnies. When Mr. Schweiger sought help, he couldn’t find any.
Eventually, the donation-funded group moved into space provided by the city at a park. The small building with wall-mounted air conditioners has 23 pens housing roughly 40 bunnies total – all of whom had been dumped or injured. The group’s volunteers have even more bunnies at their homes.
Mr. Schweiger says the goal is to find them homes but not before educating potential adopters about all that pet ownership entails. In 2023, the group adopted out 119 rabbits.
“The biggest problem is people not thinking they’re forever pets,” he says.
Rescue groups can provide an additional “pressure valve release” by providing more homes for animals in their communities, says Stephanie Filer, executive director of Shelter Animals Count, a national database. But success hinges on cooperation among various entities.
“We are best as an industry when we are all collaborating and working well together for the benefit of the animals,” she says.
In Las Vegas, cooperation is also occurring on the population-control front. It’s on display in late July at the Heaven Can Wait Animal Society, a nonprofit focusing on spay and neuter services. Cats under anesthesia, slated for the minor surgical procedure, sleep soundly in a row.
On its highest-volume days, the clinic can spay or neuter 100 community cats brought in by volunteer trappers, partner nonprofit groups, foster programs, local residents, or the animal shelter, says Kelly Sheehan, the organization’s communications and development manager.
“We can’t do what we do without them,” she says.
The Community Cat Coalition of Clark County is one of the volunteer organizations routinely bringing cats to the nonprofit clinic. C5, as it’s known, traps community cats that are part of street colonies and returns them after they have been spayed or neutered.
Keith Williams, president of C5, performed system and data analysis for the aerospace industry before retiring. He approaches his nonprofit’s work with the same numbers-oriented mindset. “If we can go upstream and deal with the root problem, which is vastly too many being born, then the burden on the rescue world will be diminished,” he says.
For volunteers, success also means saying goodbye. Jill Jones, a volunteer at A Path 4 Paws, gives a cattle dog named Art ample belly rubs on a patch of artificial turf. He squirms in delight. Will this be their final interaction? For Art’s sake, she hopes so.
“You get attached to them, but then it’s nice when you don’t see them because they got a home,” she says.
Within weeks, Art and Vino had both found homes. They posed for photos, tongues hanging out in canine smiles, with their new families.
