About PAWS Houston

PAWS Houston is a non-profit organization that helps sustain relationships between pet owners and their pets through a period of the owner's terminal and/or chronic illness both in the hospital and at home. PAWS Houston will facilitate, when possible, visits to the hospital, hospice, nursing home and rehabilitation centers in the hopes of improved physical and mental health for the pet owner. PAWS Houston will participate in ongoing research aimed at providing measurable evidence that the human animal bond can be measured on a physiological basis.

Services include subsidized veterinary care, volunteer pet care, foster care and adoption when necessary. In addition to direct client services, PAWS Houston plays a large role in education of the medical and veterinary communities about the benefits and risks of animal companionship for people with medical and financial hardships. We provide Safe Pet Guidelines for our clients. By helping them keep their much-loved pets, we hope to improve their quality of life.

Our clients are people who face many losses: health, employment, and sometimes support of family and friends. By helping our clients keep their animals, we help them to keep at least one part of the life they enjoyed. It is our agency’s policy to acknowledge that our human clients are still the rightful guardians of our animal clients; we are here to help them care for their animals in the best possible way. It is in this way that we are improving the quality of life of our clients while promoting their dignity – by acknowledging their role in the animals’ life. For our clients, animal companionship has been an important part of their lives – so important, in fact, that many people tell us of foregoing their own needs to meet those of their animals. When we hear of any animal that is important enough that a person will give up his/her life-prolonging medication or other necessities to feed that animal, we know what we do is essential.

PAWS is dedicated to preserving the human/animal bond between our clients and their companion animals. Those that we serve are people with limited abilities and the animals with whom they share their lives.

Preserving Animal Companionship for the Elderly

Starting in 2004, PAWS Houston has officially launched is program to assist Senior Animal Guardians.  In Houston, there are thousands of low-income Seniors living alone who, without the benefit of animal companionship, would be living in complete isolation.  More than twenty research studies conducted over the past ten years document the positive correlation between contact with animals and improved emotional outlook and health stability.  For low-income seniors, the physical and financial challenges of caring for their companion animals is oftentimes a burden they are only able to bear at a great personal price.   In order to provide for their cherished companions, they have sacrificed their own medicine, food and other essential needs.  PAWS Houston will provide them with our comprehensive array of services, including pet food, spay and neuter services and in-home assistance that allow them to continue to live independently.

 

WHAT WE DO

  • Help people who enjoy their companion animals.
  • Have volunteers who exercise our pet clients.
  • Provide hygienic assistance for clients whose health requires.
  • Help coordinate visits to veterinary clinics.
  • Provide foster care for clients’ pets.
  • Recommend/coordinate spay/nueter services.
  • Staff information tables at Houston locations.
  • Engage in outreach to educate the community and introduce potential clients to our services.
  • Act as a prime source for information on Zoonoses, the Human-Animal Bond, and other educational concerns.

    • WHAT WE DON’T

  • Provide services for individuals not registered
    as a PAWS client.
  • Automatically pay vet bills for every client.
  • Find homes for litters born to clients’ pets.
  • Function as part of the SPCA or any other group. (Although we manitain open
    communication with other animal groups)
  • Receive funding from city, county, state, or
    federal government or any other social services.
  • Have PAWS branches, although similar agencies
    can be found many other places in the world.
  • Give animals to individuals.