We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
What an incredible year it has been for the local PAWS Animal Shelter in Chinook. 2022 set all kinds of records and milestones while overcoming some of the most difficult challenges the organization has ever encountered. The local shelter has seen its presence in the community grow tenfold over the past few years and that growth reached new heights in 2022. For the third year in a row the shelters animal intake, adoptions, rescues and donations all reached record highs. The pace of growth the past 12 months has hit warp speed and to cap off 2022 the shelter received its largest donation ever from one single donor. North West Farm Credit Services made a $5,200 donation, then just this past week another $1,600 donation was received from Hi-Line Law,
A group from North West Farm Credit Services made the trip down to Chinook to visit the shelter and personally present the check to PAWS President, Alyssa Hewitt. The group included Amanda Barta, Tyrah Nutt, Justin Elliot, Kendal Dirden and Jennifer Dees. Their donation went beyond just a monetary contribution. The group asked what they could do to help the shelter in a more hands on way, "They wanted to know what they could do to help in person, so they are going to set up a few days to come out and hang out with the dogs, help us with any projects we have going on, so it is really like a double donation, money and labor. What we always need more of, is manpower," commented Hewitt.
The money received from this particularly large donation has already filled a huge need, "That money has been earmarked for the remaining balance of our new kennels that we are getting next year. We were able to put half down with the amazing donations we had already received this year and with the next half coming due we will use it for that," said Hewitt.
2022 has shattered donation records, "It's been a stellar year, we have broken every record that we had set last year," added Hewitt. Brickcents, Brandon Nissen here in town is another one that has done amazing things for us. He started this thing where he is selling Lego Dogs or is adopting them out and so we get a very large portion of what people pay for those and then he cuts us a check and that's something we don't have to do anything for. He gets them, sells them and gives us a check and that's phenomenal. It's really fun cause it's like the new dog comes out and people are like oh my god I got to have the new dog."
In another incredible gesture, Hewitt made her way to Havre this past Wednesday to pick up another check, "Hi-line Law did a donation match for us in November that said if we hit $1,500 in donations that they would match the amount and we got $1,650 so I'm picking up a check for that match so $1,500 is huge for us." The donations aren't just coming in from local donors said Hewitt, "Social media has been our best friend through all of this because everybody knows everybody, and it just goes all across the country. We received checks from everywhere. We got one from Maryland from this elderly woman wrote us a check for $5, it was just one of those things, she wrote us this great little note with it."
Maryland, Hewitt added is the furthest away that the shelter has received donations from. Massachusetts is the furthest a dog has been adopted out to. "A lot of our adopters are from out of state. Boots was a dog we had sheltered for quite awhile and this girl in town just started walking him, that's all she wanted to do is walk the dogs. She fell in love with him and started fostering him and fell in love even harder to the point where she just said I'm adopting him. Then her parents fell ill so she decided to make the move back to New Zealand where she is originally from but found out it's a lot of money to get a dog over there and all the hoops that needed to be jumped through were just too much. She had lived in Massachusetts and had some friends that had a bunch of land and wanted to meet Boots, so they transported Boots to Massachusetts, met the family, they fell in love and that was that."
The biggest rescue by far in the shelter's history took place in August when more than 40 dogs were rescued from an abandoned property. The dogs became known as the 'Hell House Hounds' due to the deplorable condition of their living space. Many of the dogs faced severe medical issues not to mention extreme mental and social issues that forced the volunteer staff to do things that required an enormous amount of time and compassion to meet the dog's needs. Vet bills were through the roof, shelter requirements were far exceeded. In the end, the staff, the community and everyone came together to turn a sad desperate situation into a true success story. In addition to the dogs rescued a litter of pups were born after arriving at the shelter. To date, many of the dogs have found their forever homes and many still remain at the shelter. The dogs are doing great, playing, becoming more social and enjoying a safe environment.
As 2022 comes to a close the shelter is in good shape, "We're sitting pretty good, what a lot of people did this year that was a really big help was they made payments directly to the Vets offices and that was huge. The expense of this is just insane because just to get each dog to zero, vaccinations, spay/neuter, micro-chipped, nothing outside of that is two to three hundred dollars per dog, so times forty is a lot," said Hewitt. Despite the incredible intake the volunteer staff at the shelter is really low, "Myself, a paid part time Kennel Attendant that is here three nights a week, another volunteer one night a week and one that is here two nights a week and another that is here twice that's it. So, three steady volunteers a paid attendant and myself," said Hewitt.
The outlook for the shelter in 2023 is bright and Hewitt looks forward to increasing the shelters' ability to help all these wonderful dogs find their forever homes. PAWS is always looking for new volunteers to help in anyway, walking the dogs, helping with training, cleaning the kennels, feeding and so on. Stop by and visit, take a look around, you may just find that dogs may help you as much as you help them.
