Part of each sale through the iHeartDogs store is donated to Greater Good, which helps support various charities. Thanks to customers like you, happy endings, like the one below, are made possible.
There are many animal welfare groups striving daily to alleviate overpopulation and the number of street dogs in Puerto Rico. GreaterGood.org’s Rescue Rebuild program had the opportunity to travel to Puerto Rico to help one of those organizations—the Puerto Rico Animal Welfare Society (PAWS).
PAWS is an amazing group whose mission is to provide low cost spay/neuter at their own veterinary clinic, offer educational programs about animal care and spay/neuter, and promote adoption via their foster network. Since opening in 2002, they have spayed/neutered over 14,000 dogs and adopted out over 3,500.
Through their low cost spay/neuter program in Isabela, PAWS met Doña Enid, an animal rescuer with over 80 dogs at her farm in Las Marías. Doña Enid would pick up street dogs, which Puerto Ricans call satos, and give them sanctuary and provide much needed care at her rescue.
Over the last year PAWS helped Doña Enid spay/neuter and vaccinate all of her rescue satos. Unfortunately, Doña Enid passed away from cancer in April of 2015, and since she was so grateful for all the help PAWS had provided, she asked them to take over her rescue. She also offered to donate the property to PAWS, which would enable them to open a satellite veterinary clinic in an abandoned school on the site.
Since this rural mountain region in Las Marías desperately needs low cost spay/neuter services, PAWS agreed to take it over. They then enlisted Rescue Rebuild’s help to make the dogs as comfortable and enriched as possible until they can find them their forever homes and to get the property ready for their new spay/neuter clinic.
Rescue Rebuild brought volunteers from Mars, Inc. and our very own GreaterGood.com to help with this project. Twenty plus volunteers came together to build raised dog pavilions called salas, agility-enrichment items, and two new play yards for the dogs living there. We also helped renovate the abandoned school building on the property, put a roof on another building that they will use for storage and post-operative recovery, built shelves, constructed raised cat feeding stations, graded their washed-out driveway, and funded the installation of a new septic system.
The volunteers were so excited to be able to help PAWS get one step closer to being able to help these animals. After our departure, we received the following message from PAWS founder and head veterinarian Dr. Gwen Davis:
“I want to express how grateful the dogs and cats of Doña Enid’s sanctuary are for their new home. I know Doña Enid is looking down on you all from heaven knowing that you have shown real human kindness and over flowing love. GOD BLESS YOU ALWAYS! Thank You!”
