Paphos People

New Year is traditionally a time to resolve to make changes to improve your life. Amongst your resolutions please give serious thought to doing some voluntary work for PAWS Dog Shelter. Volunteering gets you out of the house, can keep you both physically and mentally fit, allows you to meet new, like-minded people and to increase your sense of self-worth. The work can be truly rewarding.

PAWS Dog Shelter is run by a registered charity and houses around 160 stray or abandoned dogs. Its primary purpose is to care for the residents and to try and rehome as many as possible to loving homes. There are only two people at the shelter who are paid to oversee the dogs on a daily basis and a further person is responsible for the maintenance of the compound. The shelter is therefore dependant on volunteers to come and assist in whatever way they can. This includes cleaning, feeding, grooming, walking and playing with the dogs. New volunteers are asked which type of activity they would like to get involved in and are then shown the ropes by an experienced individual. To give you an idea of the scale of the operation, 12 volunteers are required just to feed and clean the dogs on a DAILY BASIS.

The PAWS compound and structures are quite extensive and require regular maintenance including cutting down of shrubbery, weeding, maintaining gates, spreading gravel, repairing plumbing & drainage and maintaining electrics. Assistance from volunteers in any of these aspects would be welcome.

If you have experience or want to become involved in publicity or fund-raising for the charity, please get in touch.
Taking that first step to volunteering – finding and going to a new place, for the first time and meeting new people can seem daunting. Please do not let that put you off as we could arrange for someone to meet you (in the Paphos area) and bring you to the shelter so that you can be shown round and get chatting to some of the existing volunteers. Most importantly you would get a rapturous welcome from our happy dogs. How much time would you need to devote to be a volunteer? Just two to three hours a week would be much appreciated, more if you could spare the time.

For more information or to arrange to come to the shelter please call Matt or Pete on 99683775 or email paws-capca@hotmail.co.uk or message us on Facebook www.facebook.com/PawsDogShelter