Heather Mason is a social worker who dreams of creating a place that will temporarily keep your pet, if you’re temporarily unable to care for it, instead of losing it forever. Mason is hosting a fun walk Saturday in South Bend to help raise money for the project.
Many of the cats and dogs filling shelters these days weren’t unloved or unwanted but their people encountered new situations where they couldn’t care for them.
Mason, a dog lover herself, says she sees it happen too often in her job as a drug treatment therapist at Oaklawn. It pains her to see clients give up their pets to enter treatment, sometimes choosing between the two if they can’t keep their pets in treatment or new housing.
”So I was starting to see it become more and more of a trend, and hearing even stories of clients who have lost their companion animals due to having them being cared under somebody else, and them getting on their feet and coming out, and going to find the person that they had left their companion animal with, to just have disappeared with the companion.”
And she soon learned the need extends beyond people with substance abuse problems.
“We have medical emergencies, we have hospitalizations, people in domestic violence situations, housing of course, severe weather, the tornado that unfortunately hit up in Michigan, so when we have these unexpected events and we have companion animals, what are we supposed to do?”
Mason last year founded Safe Paws Recovery Housing of Michiana, a 501(c)3 nonprofit. She’s still recruiting board members and they want to raise money to build a boarding center that would keep pets for up to a year.
On Saturday they’re hosting a 5K Family Fun Walk starting at 9 a.m. at Howard Park in South Bend. Dogs on a leash are welcome to join. Sponsors will have resource tables, there will be prizes for “most spirited” dog and “best human and pup duo,” and there will be free pup cups at the end of the walk. The event is free and donations are encouraged.
Mason says she realizes she has a long way to go and says she’s just trying to start building awareness on Saturday. She can see starting with volunteers fostering pets in their homes but ultimately wants to create a facility.
“I like to look at it as a community boarding center, so more trauma-informed care for even the companion animals, so no chain-link kennels. My idea is to have more trauma-informed like doggy bedrooms and more of a relaxed setting because the companion animals are also going to go through a trauma experience of being taken away from their owners.”
For a link to register for the fun walk in advance, find this story at WVPE.org.
