As National Animal Shelter Appreciation Month wraps up in November, a non-profit organization in Greene County spotlights the work they do in caring for the animals that are brought to the Community Animal Shelter.

People for Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) of Greene County President Ann Wenthold says the city of Jefferson has part-time employees that maintain and clean the facility, but their organization is still responsible for caring for the cats and dogs and one way they do that is through volunteers.These individuals are allowed to take dogs for walks, which she points out the new Rotary Centennial Dog Park has been a great asset.

“We’ve taken a huge advantage of the dog park. Our volunteers can let the dogs out and play, or run, or walk them along the paths in the dog park. And that’s just a huge benefit for everybody, people get their exercise just as much as the dogs do.”  

Wenthold explains that volunteers can also socialize with dogs and cats inside the shelter in back rooms, while also brushing the animals too. Wenthold says an important service they provide for any animal that is adopted from the shelter is micro-chipping the pet. She describes the chip as the size of a grain of rice that is implanted into the animal and contains the owner’s name, address and phone number. Wethold stresses the importance of this technology as an efficient way to re-locate an owner if an animal is found by someone else.

“Any vet clinic or any animal shelter has scanners and they can scan the animals as we do with every dog and cat that come in, we also scan for that to potentially find an owner. But as an adopter, you know that your information is registered somewhere and that chip will scan, it will pop up (with) your information, and as long as you keep everything current we can give you a call and reunite you with your animal.”    

Wenthold illustrates PAWS constantly needs donations, both monetarily for veterinarian bills and specific items all the time. She notes that there are several ways people can donate, including their website under the donate tab and make an online donation through PayPal, or mail them to P.O. Box 135 in Jefferson, along with the website chewy.com PAWS has a wishlist of items that people can purchase, or when the shelter is open to the public on Saturdays from noon-3pm. She adds that the recent Photos with Santa brought in over $700 in money and food and the fall collection from Deal’s Orchard was another $300. 

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