PAAWS RI

04/26/2023

Good News!

A poor gray tabby cat was found in a dumpster that had been transported into a commercial transfer station. During an attempt to remove the frightened cat from the dumpster, she bolted into a nearby commercial warehouse. After a few attempts, she was successfully trapped and brought to Providence Animal Control. Dr Rauch brought the cat to her home, for rehabilitation and for some necessary medical care. She needed to be spayed and vaccinated; in addition, her tail needed amputation due to an infected severe injury. Several organizations, including Paaws RI, paid for her medical care. Now for the best part of her story: she found a wonderful home with a woman who has several other indoor feral and semi-feral cats. This lucky kitty will get all the time and space she needs to settle into her new permanent indoor home. One success story!

04/06/2023

Easter Safety Tips

Here are some tips to keep our four legged friends safe over the Easter Holiday. Enjoy!

1)Avoid plastic Easter grass in your Easter Basket and decorations. Both dogs and cats can play with the grass and accidentally swallow it. This can cause an intestinal blockage.
2)No Lillies for kitties. Easter lilies are highly toxic to cats, and cause many feline deaths each year. Keep lilies out of reach!
3)Keep your Easter chocolates away from dogs. Many dogs like to eat chocolate, but it is toxic to them. Hide your candy!
4)Avoid feeding your pets too many people food treats. This can cause serious problems for both dogs and cats.
5)Enjoy the holiday with your friends and family, both two and four legged.

02/13/2023

Look at this beautiful kitten! He was found on a vacant lot in Providence, eating trash. After getting some medical care, and learning to trust people, he is now loving life in his new home. A happy ending!

02/09/2023

Paaws RI has had many changes in 2022.
Dr Annette Rauch has retired from her veterinary practice and sold the building at 2944 Post Road in Warwick. Scruffy Paws Animal Rescue has purchased the building, and will continue to operate an animal shelter at the site.
Paaws RI will keep on providing TNR services of feral and community cats. In addition, we will continue to financially support other animal non-profits, and clients needing financial assistance with their animals.

09/02/2022

Our friends at Scruffy Paws Animal Rescue really could use some help right about now. They have had to close all intakes due to financial burdens. Can you spare just $5 to help them out?

🐈$5 Friday Fundraiser🐈

Today is a sad day for our community and our community felines. As of this morning, Scruffy Paws Animal Rescue is on temporary hold for any new incoming intakes. 😞💔

Unfortunately recent financial burdens have put us in this horrible position. Last week, our team experienced a tragic loss, a teenager kitten by the name of Reggie. The veterinarians believe he ingested some sort of foreign material and was actively choking on it. He went into emergency surgery to remove it. In the meantime he developed horrible pneumonia and required to be in the oxygen chamber for several days. Part of his lung lobe was infected. We knew keeping him in the hospital was going to cost over $1000 a day but we owed it to Reggie to give him a fighting chance. On day three, we received a call at 2:30am in the morning, Reggie was struggling to breathe again and they thought his prognosis was poor. We couldn't let him suffer any longer and decided to let him go. It was all devastating and one of the worst calls to receive at 2:30am. It happened so fast and so slow all at the same time to the point we couldn't get two minutes to post about him and how much we loved him.😞

Now, many shelters/rescues would say spending such extensive funding on one animal is ridiculous. Imagine all the animals you could have helped with that money. To an extent they have a point.✔️ But we have a different philosophy. Every rescue that comes into our care will be treated as one of our very own pets and if there is hope then we stand behind them during their fight. Unfortunately, little Reggie lost his fight, but if we had to do it over again, we would still provide him with that fighting chance. Thank you to the wonderful veterinarians and techs over at Ocean State Veterinary Specialists who worked on Reggie's case. I know they were just as upset as we were with this outcome. They became very fond of that little boy. Now we have been left with a $5000 medical bill and this would have hurt a lot less if Reggie had come home.💔

Do you all remember the kitten Oliver with the diaphragmatic hernia pushing into his chest cavity? If not, catch his original story here.👇
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2550839151714309&id=978947842236789
Well, he's doing absolutely amazing. His foster mom is absolutely smitten with him. The specialist wanted Oliver to get bigger before his big surgery day, if stable enough. Luckily, he had nothing but improvement after his initial setback. Oliver is scheduled for a consult appointment with a specialist at the end of the month and most likely will be receiving surgery with in a week after that appointment. This is a VERY invasive and expensive procedure. Another $5000-$6000 to be exact. But if Oliver has a chance at survival and it improves his quality of life, you bet your butt/tail he will get this procedure.

In addition to what was stated above we also had some more minor things go on at the same time at the shelter. Most of our shelter animals came down with upper respiratory infections and required antibiotics. Although everyone is doing well and on the mend, we wiped through our antibiotics and our team is exhausted from providing nursing care. But they are all troopers and did/are doing a phenomenal job. 💪 Dewy had to go in for yet another procedure because his wounds will not fully heal. Andre's incision became infected and we had a little scare but he seems to be doing better now. Owen with the bleeding eyes has a recheck coming up. Luckily there has been some improvement. Then of course there's the typical veterinary care we provide on a daily basis.🤷‍♀️

With all of this going on at once, we are looking at a $15,000-$20,000 funding loss. This is HUGE and the cause of our intake hold! We have no choice right now but to stop 🛑 and think about the current animals in our care. We have to catch up. Find loving forever homes for everyone who is ready. Put some fundraisers in place. Build up our veterinary fund again. Then we will be back at it, we promise. This is totally destroying us, especially because the need is so high right now. We have RI residents going through awful situations and need to surrender their pets. We have litters of kittens currently out there and ones about to be born out there. Stray/abandoned cats who need rescue. Reproducing cats who desperately need to be spayed/neutered. 😭 We will refer everyone to other amazing organizations in this state that we are hopeful can help until we can get back up on our feet. 🐾

We are hoping our community can come together once again to give us a good start. We know most of you have contributed to one of our many fundraisers recently and we completely understand if you just financially can't right now, we totally get it. So we please ask you to share. What we are really hoping for🤞is to be effective with a $5 Friday Fundraising campaign! We have over 8000 followers on this page, even if we get half to just donate $5, we would be in good shape. The amount of money 💲 raised is always wonderful but what is really heartwarming to us, is the number of people that come together to make it happen. 💙

So please, if you can just spare $5 today to our $5 Friday Fundraiser, please do so by one of the following ways:
🐈‍⬛️ Donate through this link below.⬇️
🐈‍⬛️ Paypal scruffypawsanimalrescue@gmail.com and note "FFF" for Five Friday Fundraiser.
🐈‍⬛️ Venmo and note "FFF".
🐈‍⬛️ Send a check to 2944 Post Rd Warwick, RI 02886 and again note "FFF".
🐈‍⬛️ Drop off $5 in person and say hi 👋 to some of our shelter cats and put a smile on our team members faces!

08/20/2022

Andre the giant update!

Andre did extremely well during surgery yesterday. The leg was a tough one to amputate, but Dr. Rauch did it. 💪

Now the challenging part is going to get this 20lb 🦃 to start walking on 3 legs. He was able to stand overnight, which is a good sign! After a few days our team will start some physical therapy. He's eating and drinking. All good signs!🤞 He even made a friend and loves his new stuffed animal.🤣

Thank you all for coming together to help us with Andre. We had over 60 donors so far which is just absolutely amazing. Because of all of you, Andre will no longer be in pain and starts a new journey today!😻 Major 🗣 to Dr. Rauch for canceling her plans and coming in to provide lifesaving care for Andre. 🦸‍♀️

Anyone who missed Andres story yesterday, catch up here.👉https://www.facebook.com/978947842236789/posts/2583947061736851/

08/18/2022

Andre the giant needs donations for his medical care! Please help if you can.

07/31/2022

Occasionally Dr. Rauch will come out of her retirement and assist with surgical procedures when needed, which is what happened this past week.🦸‍♀️

We got a call from our friends over at PawsWatch at the Community Cat Center who were desperate for spay/neuter appointments for 12 of their kittens. The lack of spay/neuter appointments were keeping the kittens from joining their forever homes. 😞

Our friends at Scruffy Paws Animal Rescue generously agreed to allow these procedures to be performed in their surgical suite and Dr. Rauch came in from 7:30am and left at 7:00pm.😴 But she got every single kitten spayed/neutered and vaccinated. Also a feral that needed a neuter and medical attention to his eye came in too! She's amazing!🥰

When organizations work together, 💩 gets done!💪

07/29/2022

Please help Pickles!🥒

05/15/2022

05/11/2022

This little bean came through our doors yesterday morning for a check-up. Not sure of the entire story, but I do know animal control is looking into the matter of possible other siblings.

She is a bit emaciated and dehydrated. She cries and cries if no interaction. It's that sort of screaming cry that makes you want to cry. 😭Luckily one of our adoption partners had a mom and litter her age! She immediately curled up to mama and the kittens accepted her as one of their own.🥰 She has also stopped crying! Yahoo!🎉

Kitten season is here. It never left. It's not going anywhere. Please spay and neuter your pets. Unfortunately in our state, like many others, it's hard to come by affordable spay and neuter appointments. Also, all appointments seem to be booked out until the end of the summer. 😳 It's just awful. If you are aware of any affordable clinics or spay/neuter resources, please post them below for our community!⬇️

05/05/2022

The life of a feral intact Tom cat. Abscesses on both side of face. Scars all over his body. Our hearts just break. 💔 No more testosterone for you buddy. ✂️