4 Paws Animal Rescue is comprised of volunteers and animal specialists whose mission isi to reduce euthanasia of companion animals. We strive to meet our mission in concert with the following four guiding principles:
1. Build and promote a spirit of cooperation within the rescue, the community, and with other rescues. We will strive to build a network with other rescues and work together to pool resources, both human and otherwise, to save companion animals. Our intent is to build partnerships with volunteers, adopters, animal specialists, and animal support organizations to accomplish such goals ad developing pet food banks, sponsoring spay/neuter drives, and identifying low-cost vaccination clinics. This principle is designed to, among other things, facilitate keeping companion animals with their existing families.
2. Focus on responsibility: as individuals, as community members, as citizens, and as leaders. We will use best practices to operate, clearly and consistently applying policies and procedures. Most importantly, we will strive to be a "full-service" rescue, providing ongoing training, follow-up support, and community building activities for our volunteers, adopters, and community members. We will work within our resources - human and financial - to ensure that we can support those to whom we have committed.
3. Focus on the intake/adoption of urgent animals from high-kill shelters. We will center our intake and adoption efforts on animals that are identified in high-kill shelters and those that seel to research facilities. We plan to rescue dogs from imminent danger, priorizing these cases over owner surrender and rehoming requests (which are addressed in the two principles above).
4. Strive to help as many animals as we can by prioritizing "family-friendly" rescues. We will rescue animals that are "family-friendly" as a priority over those who require significant rehabilitation. We believe this will allow us to deploy our limited resources in such a way as to help the largest number of animals. The faster we can rescue and adopt out an animal, the more quickly we can save another.
