The Protecting Animal Welfare Society is getting set for its five-year anniversary in January and is approaching nearly 3,000 animals saved.
PAWS director Lisa Jackson says the numbers keep going up every year since the move several years ago to the current location on West Walnut.
“Just a lot of great volunteers. It’s something that is a 24-hour-a-day thing, the animals need care every day,” she says. “[They] need fed, let outside, taken care of. So, if it wasn’t for the volunteers that we have, we wouldn’t be as successful as we are.”
Jackson notes PAWS is looking to get some more publicity in the shelter’s spay-neuter program. The money being made off of it is being used to start a Trap-Neuter-Release program for the “abundance” of feral cats in the area.
“We save about 30 spots a month with the animal protective league in Springfield, and whenever you utilize their low-cost spay-neuter clinic, you have to drop off at like 7:30 in the morning. People with kids to get to school or a job to get to, it’s not always something that fits in their schedule,” says Jackson.
“So once a month, we offer where you drop off your pet that needs altered to PAWS, and we drive them over there, drop them off and then we go back the next day and pick them up.”
Last year, Jackson says PAWS saved 759 animals. The shelter has taken in everything from cats and dogs to snakes and horses.