The local PAWS shelter is hosting its first ever adoption event on Saturday, January 28 from 10:00 am - 2:00 pm at North 40 in Havre. "We had planned on holding adoption events previously, but Covid shut that down like everything else, so this will be our first ever adoption event," said PAWS Manager Alyssa Hewitt. "We are super happy to be partnering with North 40 to put on the event. We will be having reduced adoption fees of $150 during that time only."

The shelter will have a total of 11 dogs at the adoption event, "We will have six of our shelter dogs on site as well as five live in dogs that are sheltering in the community until we can find them a home," said Hewitt. A few volunteers will transport the dogs to North 40 using the PAWS van. The event came to be by happen stance, "North 40 has new management and they actually reached out to us just to make a donation and while we were talking, I mentioned that we would like to have an adoption event. The manager got in touch with corporate and they got back to him approving the event."

Hewitt hopes this won't be the only one, "We are hoping to make it a regular thing out there. Kailey Passon with Hi-Line Canine will also be there and will be answering questions about training and talking about her preschool program with pups. The first three people to sign up for her preschool will get a discount on the package cost." Everything a family would need to take home a dog that day will be available on site, "We will have applications there and we will have all the puppies there to sit hang out with and see who maybe will fit into your family. We are really excited about. If approved the puppies can be adopted taken home."

The dogs are up to date with all their care, "The six puppies from PAWS are spayed and neutered. The other five are still too young so we are going to have vouchers that we are going to give the family to take to Blaine County Vet services and get it done when they are six months of age. We will have kennel cards for all of our dogs that are not there so every dog will be represented. People know how demanding puppies can be and this way if you're not looking for a puppy you can look at our other dogs and we can set up a time to see the dog at the shelter. Applications are available online in case anyone wants to get pre-approved."

PAWS was also treated to a nice visit recently. Alyssa, Ellen, and Aspen Crawford stopped by the PAWS animal shelter on Wednesday, January 18 to make their first donation to the shelter. Ellen, 6 and her sister Aspen, 8 are from Havre and were super excited to see the puppies and give them their toys. "Ellen started 'Wuvs for Walley' a about a month ago," said her mom, Alyssa.

Ellen fell in love with a dog named Walley that was here at the shelter a year, year and a half ago and absolutely fell in love with Walley and saw that he needed lots of love and lots of medical care."

Alyssa was amazed by it all, "Ellen just created a bond with Walley, just something about him. She has talked about Walley nonstop and wanted to do something to help and she wanted to do something to help other shelter dogs so they could find their forever home. Ellen started making these dog toys out of old tee shirts. We started her a Facebook page 'Wuvs for Walley' and she sells her dog toys on there and 100% of the proceeds comes back to the shelter."

With money in hand from her sales Ellen and the gang went shopping, "We just went to North 40 and we bought 'pig ears' per the puppies request and the girls picked out some dog toys and dog bones and so we are here to make our first delivery of goodies for the shelter. She helps cut all the materials, tie them and braid the. We put a post on Facebook asking for donations of t-shirts. So, if anyone has any they would like to donate they can just drop them off at Crawford Distillery. We cut out all the seams cut the arms off cut any logos or prints off and use the rest. We cut them, stretch them and braid them in all it takes about seven minutes to make each toy," concluded Alyssa.