The
Mission Statement and History of
Pals for Pooches
Our mission is to help the dogs we can, find the homes they deserve, and get the medical treatment they need. We will work with individuals and organizations to provide help to our canine companions.
Pals
for Pooches was started to address a need for local volunteer animal groups
to help cut the costs of medical treatments to small and medium sized
dogs, to provide a way for rescued mother dogs and their puppies to be
able to grow together and a central place for people who have lost a dog
to call and have the information sent to all the vets, shelters, boarding
places and groups.
Last September, Kathy Pennington agreed to foster a stray rescued by one
such volunteer group, Volunteers for Animal Protection. That stray soon
had puppies, and she all of a sudden found herself with 10 fosters rather
than just one. Because she had the room at her house, she was able to
keep both the mother and the puppies, and they were able to stay together
and be socialized. Because of this, the puppies were adopted through VAP
in a short period of time. The puppies were all well socialized from being
around people all the time. In fact, several children in the neighborhood
who often came over to see how the puppies had grown enjoyed their progress.
About a month after the last of the puppies was gone, VAP asked her to
foster another mother and puppies. The mother, known as Demolition Dolly,
had her puppies in a deserted building that was about to be destroyed
in the Montrose area. The mother rescued her pups by dragging them out
of the building and placing them in a nearby ditch. A lady saw this and
took Dolly in. However, she was in as bad a fix because her house was
also scheduled to be demolished. She called VAP to see if they could take
the dog and pups and once again Kathy was asked to foster the dogs. She
agreed and the puppies were easily adopted out again because they were
brought up with lots of people contact and other dog contact. In addition,
until the time of their adoptions, they were able to stay with their mother.
Another experience, this one sad, gave Kathy insight into a service desperately
needed. She was gone when a thunderstorm came through several years ago
and her little pet Chihuahua, Precious, escaped from the house. After
several maddening days of calling all the vets, shelters and groups in
the area, she was finally called by an individual and told that Precious
had been hit by a car and killed. Although it would not have made a difference
in this case, she thought about all the people who would not have the
time to call all the places that needed to be called and all the bulletin
boards upon which notices could be posted. This will give others the ability
to call just one place and have all the vets, groups and shelters in the
area notified of a lost dog.
Because of these incidents and from working with VAP, she realized the
need for a shelter such as she wanted to start. Since she had a store
in downtown Humble that was not being used, she decided to turn this into
a special type of shelter, for mothers and puppies, and animals that need
to be sheltered for treatments such as heartworm.
Updated
July 20, 2000
We finally have the new shelter!
It is located at the corner of 1st Street and N. Houston in downtown Humble
and it is grrrrrr-eat! Come by and see us, the shelter and all the new
dogs! It' so hard for volunteers to find time to update all the pics as
often as the dogs come in and get adopted out, so you can't be sure you're
perfect pal isn't here waiting for you unless you come in and visit the
pups in person!
In the meantime here are some pics of other
happy new owners and their soon to be spoiled new babies!
Copyright 2000, Pals For Pooches.