A Paw Up Rescue
Prosser, WA 99350

Welcome!

A Paw Up is a brand new rescue, but we are not brand new to rescuing! We started rescuing death row dogs before we really knew what it was even called, we just knew we had to do something to help shelters with the burden of having to euthanize perfectly good pets for lack of space and lack of suitable homes for them!

We began our mission in 2001 shortly after adopting a German Shepherd Dog from a local shelter. We noticed that this shelter needed help, and we pitched in and helped where needed, whether gathering donated dog food or taking pets to adoption days away from the shelter, or cleaning cages and kennels. We also fostered for the shelter, and now and then we brought home an especially needy dog or two and had them fixed and adopted them out, always telling people that all these dogs need is “a paw up”. Hence, A Paw Up was born!

Located in Eastern WA, we run our rescue out of our home, and our foster dogs and cats live as part of our family, interacting with each other, and with our own pets and with our kids, so we can get a feel for what kind of home would be best suited to each individual animal. Shelters and Animal Control agencies, PLEASE feel free to E-MAIL us at any time, with an animal you feel needs A Paw Up!

Policies:

Your adoption fee will be applied to the rescue and care of many more animals in need. We try to remain lower on our fees than many other shelters and area rescues! Every animal that leaves our rescue is spayed or neutered by our vet.

Our adoption fees vary: $150.00 for a 4mos. - adult altered pet. However, small mixed breeds, smaller purebreds and occasionally larger purebreds will run from $200-300.00. You might ask why our adoption fee is higher for the purebreds and smaller breeds, and the answer is simple. Purebreds and smaller breeds are in much higher demand and the rescue is able to ask more money from the adoption of the purebreds and smaller breeds, thus being able to apply that money to the rescue and life saving of many more animals. At times animals come in with higher-than-average medical needs, and those needs must be financially met.

Donations

If you want to donate, we are now registered as a Non-profit agency in WA state, you may make donations to A Paw Up, use paypal (AlphaMom33 AT aol.com) or even make a donation directly to our vet office (email us to find out how to do that) applying a payment on our account there.

CiCi Update May 8th:

CiCi is critically ill. ***5-8-08 UPDATE:**

CiCi is back home with us. CiCi was a neglected little dog, and A PAW UP was contacted. We took her in, and made plans to spay her. Upon pre-spay examination by a vet, it was found that CiCi has a heart murmur which was subsequently diagnosed by WSU (Washington State University, Pullman, WA) vet clinic as a PDA, or Patent Ductus Arteriosis. Learn more about a PDA by clicking here. We chose, at the consult with WSU, to do what's known as a COIL EMBOLISM. At the time this was felt to be a very viable alternative to the open heart surgery (ligation of the PDA) as it was somewhat less costly and as a rescue with limited resources and fund raising ability, we had to keep in mind our costs as well.

However, during the procedure on 5-7-08, an aneurism on CiCi's aorta was nicked and began to bleed. This was a known complication and we accept that. However, we could not accept WSU's "solution" and that was to leave CiCi there and give up our rights to her, essentially, donate her to WSU so they could later perform, possibly, the surgical occlusion which we'd not opted to do at first.

They said they'd subsequently find her a home on their own, and we'd be out of CiCi's life, decision making, etc. even to the extent that we'd never even be contacted if this "new home" could not keep her. Updates "may or may not be given" as to how CiCi was doing. We could not accept this and it broke our hearts to think of doing so. The insult to all of this was that we've already paid over $1000 to WSU for diagnosis and the failed procedure. However, it is done, and CiCi has returned home with us.

We now need to either find a surgical veterinarian who can perform the ligation of CiCi's PDA and is willing to work with us, or we need to fund raise enough money to perform the PDA ligation at WSU (or another vet clinic capable of doing this). Without the ligation surgery, CiCi will not likely live to see 2 years of age.

CiCi last week, before the procedure:
cici