Rachel’s Gift: PAWS NY

By Kim Clune

Photo: Rachel Herman and Milo, Credit: Jack Deutsch

WELCOME TO RACHEL’S DAY

The city streets are quiet and still in the dim light of dawn, but for the short, shrill blast of the occasional car horn below Rachel Herman’s Brooklyn apartment window. Cats stir in search of breakfast. Rachel rolls out of bed to fill their bellies. The clock reads 6:30.

Giving each cat a head scratch, Rachel sets down in front of her computer, starting her day as the Founder and President of PAWS NY. Her all-volunteer non-profit organization helps people care for their most precious companions when physical or financial barriers prevent them from doing so.

In these wee hours, Rachel answers email, plays matchmaker to clients and volunteers, and coordinates with Donna, a social worker and PAWS NY volunteer, to arrange dog walks, litter box changes, and vet visits. But this isn’t Rachel’s full-time job. That one starts in mere moments. How does she manage both? She has perfected life-task timing. She says, “I shower at night because I need to maximize my work time in the morning.”

Having set PAWS NY’s day in motion, Rachel gets dressed, kisses her husband good-bye and heads out the door until lunchtime when, today, Rachel fills in for a volunteer’s dog walk.

PAWS NY: HELPING PEOPLE BY HELPING PETS

Walking her client’s dog past a neighborhood grocer this afternoon, Rachel recalls the impetus for founding PAWS NY. As a grad student on her way to New York University, she passed her own neighborhood grocer, one where a young homeless couple and their dog frequently sat. Rachel says, “I would occasionally donate pet food or change, but I never felt that I was making an impact.”

She asked herself a simple question then. How many New Yorkers needed meaningful assistance with their animals? Her research revealed that many did, yet there was no organization to handle such provisions. Gathering wisdom from her Masters of Public Administration degree, specializing in nonprofit management, Rachel says, “I formed a Board of Directors and PAWS NY was born.”

Recognizing, without question, that the emotional bond between humans and animals is beneficial to both, Rachel knows, too, that this ever-important relationship is difficult to preserve when a person is elderly, sick, disabled or in need. Rachel’s gift to this world, through PAWS NY, is to safeguard these relationships by coordinating the pet care that makes their precious preservation possible.

A PAWS NY volunteer with a client's dog.

VOLUNTEERS:
VALUED AND VALUABLE 

When asked to share about some of her shining volunteers, Rachel can barely contain herself. “There are so many!” she says. “Chris O’Neill is one of the volunteers in the video.  He is so great.  When our client Charles found himself in the hospital, Chris took Daisy home with him and cared for her until Charles returned home.”

Rachel also tells the story of a volunteer who helped Joan, an elderly client suffering from stage 4 lung cancer who had just two companions to provide her comfort, a dog who was also sick and a cat named Shadow. Joan’s greatest worry, as she received at-home Hospice care, was who would care for her animals after she passed on. Rachel promised that PAWS NY would keep Joan’s animals with her by providing for their needs and that these beloved pets would be cared for in Joan’s absence, too.

Although Joan and her dog passed within days of each other, Rachel feared difficulty in placing Shadow, a senior cat. Without hesitation, a PAWS NY volunteer stepped up, now providing Shadow a loving home and a new chapter in life. Thanks to this volunteer, Rachel says, “I am so happy that we were able to grant Joan her wish.”

Another volunteer is fostering the elderly dog of an elderly client who has been hospitalized for over three months now. Rachel says, “It’s really incredible.  The dog was never really trained, and she has to be walked every two hours to prevent an accident in the home.  This makes it all the more amazing that one of our volunteers has been so generous.”

Last week, this exceptional volunteer brought the dog to the hospital. The energy in the room was filled with joy as both the client and her dog lit up at first sight. With great anticipation, looking forward to the day of the dog and client’s home reunion, Rachel says “Until that time comes, we have a great volunteer looking after her.”

WHAT COMES NEXT?

Raising her young organization, Rachel aims to make PAWS NY more visible in the New York Area. By focusing on promotion, she plans to gain community funding, grow her volunteer network, educate those in need about PAWS NY’s services, and to expand those services to include financial veterinary assistance and a pet food pantry. While a beautiful plan, implementation is not an easy task. Rachel says:

The needs of our clients are so great and varied, and right now we don’t have the capacity to fully meet those needs.  The most trying part of the job is having to tell someone that we can’t help them. There are so many great things we plan to do, and with additional volunteers and funding, those things are all possible.

HELPING HANDS

Other organizations are stepping up in partnership. First founded as Partners United for People and Pets (PUPP), Rachel reached out to John Lipp, former president of PAWS SF for mentoring and a special relationship formed. Having been established since 1986, PAWS SF has had a long history of service and growth to share. Rachel says, “I asked John what he thought about us changing our name to PAWS as well.  The idea was to maintain our independence and retain our own 501c3, but the benefit would be to help raise national awareness for the PAWS brand.  John loved the idea, and so we legally changed our name from PUPP to Pets Are Wonderful Support (PAWS NY) in 2010.”

Citymeals-on-Wheels has also partnered with PAWS NY, providing many client referrals and conference room space for volunteer orientation. In the near future, pet food pantry storage and distribution of the inventory to PAWS NY clients islikely in the cards as well. Rachel says, “Citymeals is such an amazing organization. They have been the most incredible partner, and I cannot thank them enough for everything they have done for us.”

To learn more or to join the PAWS NY team, please visit the PAWS NY website, PAWS NY on Facebook, or @PAWSNY on Twitter.

Celebrate Hero Dogs with the American Humane Association

By Peggy Frezon

he·ro

[noun]  One of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.

Many dogs are heroes for saving lives, sniffing out dangerous substances, serving with our police force or armed forces. Many more dogs are considered heroes simply for exhibiting the noble qualities of love, compassion and devotion. Just see what these pet parents had to say when interviewed at their local off-lead dog park.

The American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards celebrate amazing dogs who give aid and comfort to people every day. Eight dogs have made it to the final nominations, and when you vote for your favorite dog, each vote helps raise money for deserving charitable causes.

Vote today for:

Sadie, Black Lab, arson k9. She’s worked in more than 400 fires and assisted in cases resulting in numerous arson arrests.

Harley, Australian Shepherd, hearing dog. His service brings confidence and equality to his hearing impaired partner.

Sage, Border Collie, search and rescue k9. Search missions have included 9/11, Iraq, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Sage is bravely battling lung cancer, and is now inspiring cancer patients.

Bino, Dutch Shepherd, military dog. Served as narcotics detection/patrol canine for nearly 11 years. Now Bino helps soldiers with PTSD.

Roselle, Yellow Lab, guide dog for the blind. Safely guided her blind owner out from the 78^th floor of the world trade center on 9-11.

Stacy Mae, Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, therapy dog. Stacy Mae collects and distributes teddy bears for hospitalized kids. To date she’s collected more than 2,000 teddies!

Ricochet, Golden Retriever, emerging hero dog. This surfing dog has raised over $81,000 for human/animal causes. She surfs with special needs kids and people with disabilities for therapeutic reasons.

Zurich, Yellow Lab, service dog. Zurich partners with a woman who can no longer walk or speak, and assists in her everyday life.

Vote now until October 1^st. The American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards will premiere on the Hallmark Channel on November 11^th, 8pm ET/PT. http://www.herodogawards.org/

Eye 4Wildlife

by Kim Clune

This week, we offer bird food for thought. As you’ll see, bird names and diet are not one and the same. Click each photo to learn interesting facts about these species, watch videos of them in motion, determine why they’re threatened, and how you can help them at ARKive.org.

The Cattle egret isn’t named for it’s practice of eating cattle, but rather for picking invertebrate delicacies off of them. Thusly, cattle are less the food and more the plate, as are plains zebras, water buffalo, elephants and other large grazers. And it’s not just what’s on the plate that’s for dinner. When a grazer pulls up grass to eat, it also exposes organisms in the soil below. These are easy pickings for the egret and, as long as the bird does not hinder the grazer, the relationship is a successful one.	The long-tailed jaeger, also known as the long-tailed skua, isn’t known for downing rhyming shots of Jägermeister or Kahlúa, but this bird is equally deadly in transit. The long-tailed jaeger hunts rodents by hovering some distance above the ground, pouncing on lemmings and voles or young birds below. It cannot use its feet to grasp prey. Instead, it usually shakes it in the beak to break it apart and pecks it to death.
Cook’s petrel, named in honor of the formidable explorer Captain James Cook, isn’t much of a cook at all. One of the smallest petrels (oceanic birds that return to land only to breed), its bill is long and black with tubular nostrils positioned on either side. This unique feature enables these birds to have an exceptionally acute sense of smell, used to locate food and nest sites in the dark and not in Captain James Cook’s kitchen.	The Java sparrow isn’t much for coffee, but it does have a highly social nature, flocking with hundreds of others much like the the site during pre-business hours at Starbucks. Rice is the Java sparrow’s main diet, stemming from the vast rice eilds its native lands of Java and Bali. In fact, the Java sparrow’s scientific species name oryzivora means ‘rice-eater.’ It also feeds on the small seeds of grasses and flowering plants, and occasionally insects but, alas, no coffee beans.