The (Rescue) Dog Days of Summer

Article by Janet Fortney

Although you may recognize her from her frequent appearances – always with an adoptable dog beside her – on  local television stations WECT,  WWAY, and WSFX, Lee VanOrmer is more often walking through the kennels of Paws Place Dog Rescue. Paws Place, of which VanOrmer serves as the volunteer President & Secretary, is an 18-acre Winnabow no-kill dog shelter founded in 1999. The facility, which houses and can care for 40 dogs in 26 indoor/outdoor kennels at any one time, is dedicated to rescue, rehabilitation, and adoption. 

Most Paws Place dogs have been saved from imminent euthanasia. The non-profit organization receives an extremely generous amount of physical and financial support from local volunteers and members of the community.

On a recent tour of the Paws Place facility, VanOrmer explained the logistics that go into a day-in-the-life of the shelter, starting with the invaluable services of the facility’s volunteer veterinarian.

“We have a vet room,” VanDormer explained. “Dr. Carolyn Evers is our volunteer licensed vet. It's on our application to be licensed by the Department of Agriculture for the state of North Carolina. [She] comes in and helps us reduce our costs by doing a lot of the in-house stuff here. Doing blood draws, doing fecals, nail clips, vaccinations – anything to help us reduce having to take our dogs up to [an outside] vet.”  

“We have dog wash, so we wash all of our dogs here. Our volunteers do all of our laundry for us. There's storage for all of our towels and bedding. We have 26 indoor/outdoor kennels plus five quarantine kennels in the back. Every kennel, indoor and outside, is cleaned every day – scrubbed top to bottom with disinfectant. That means anything that was in there comes out. So any blankets, any towels, any linens get brought up here and washed. We don't reuse anything, so that's the reason we're doing 20 loads of laundry a day. So we have to have a big supply to restock all of the kennels while we're washing everything.”

VanOrmer led the way to another area that would have thrilled any dog in Brunswick County and beyond as it was brimming over with dog toys. “Yes, we have lots of toys donated! We have soft toys and we have hard toys because we have a number of dogs that aren't allowed to have any of the soft toys. Some dogs, they'll tear it apart, get the fluff out, and get the squeakers out. And the next thing you know, we're up at the vet getting stomachs pumped.

“Over here is kind of our kitchen area,” she continued, “where we do all of the prep for all of the dogs' meals. We have a lot of variety of dog food that we have to use. All the dogs that are on special medications have their own little bins and baskets with little carts and what medication they're on, when they're supposed to get it, mornings and afternoons. Everything's checked off every single day. We have puppies. We have seniors. We have dogs with sensitive stomachs. We have dogs that are allergic to certain things. And as you can see, basically, other than a couple of prescription dog foods, all of this stuff is donated. We put out the call periodically to say, hey, we're running low on [a certain] dog food. And our supporters send us what we need. And we have some dogs that can only eat wet. We have some dogs that will only eat dry. We have some that do a combination of both.”

As VanOrmer came to the highlight of the tour – introducing the dogs currently residing at Paws Place – her affection for them became apparent. “Hi, Mocha!” she greeted one dog. “Good girl. She's come home to my house a couple of times.” Often, when a dog is going to be featured on an early-morning television adoption segment, they get to enjoy an overnight stay at VanOrmer's home. “I come out here the day before and get the dog,” she explained. “As our kennel manager refers to it, they get a spa getaway at my house.”

VanOrmer went on to greet other dogs – Flash, Johnny Bravo, Simon, Sissy, Gavin, Sasha, Sissy, Richie and Fonzie; and Cashew, among others. “Cashew is the last one available of the ‘nutty puppies,’” she noted. “We had a bunch of puppies we named after nuts: Pistachio, Peanut, Kui, which is a Hawaiian nut. So he's just a puppy. He's adorable.

“If a person comes and wants to adopt,” said VanOrmer, “first we walk around [the outdoor kennel area] and we find out which dog they’re potentially interested in. Then we harness the dog up and we walk around the property. So that you can get a feel for how much does this dog pull? How strong is it? Then they'll spend some one-on-one time in the meet-and-greet room. But we really encourage getting the dog out of the kennel [because] you never want to shy away from seeing the true nature of the dog. Every dog, before we send them home, is spayed or neutered, microchipped, brought up to date on all of their vaccinations, any medical conditions that we're aware of, we're addressing that. They're started on flea and tick medication, as well as heartworm prevention. So they're in great shape.”

If you are interested in adopting a Paws Place dog or would like to donate to support the shelter, go to www.pawsplace.org.