REED’S RANCH & RESCUE, DENVER CITY, TX

KATHRYN ZIESIG / NEWS&GUIDE Animal Adoption Center staffers grab the five puppies and 8-month old shepherd/mastiff from the car after they were transported to Jackson on May 27. The puppies were rescued by Lander Pet Connection and the shepherd/mastiff was found roaming Fremont County.

Joining pets and people

With its own pet population controlled, Jackson Hole comes to the aid of other animals.

By Melissa Cassutt

The 8-month old shepherd/mastiff thumped her tail and looked out of her crate as the tailgate opened on the gray GMC Denali. The staff of the Animal Adoption Center peered in, greeting the big dog with coos and a few “good girls.”

Her transport, loaded with puppies rescued by the Lander Pet Connection, arrived on a day in late May. Two litters of puppies also traveled in the vehicle, five tiny furballs snuggled in a lump with another puppy next to the driver for extra comfort on the threehour drive.

Not much was known about the big dog, named Brit, which is often the case with dogs moving through the shelter system. What was known is her future was uncertain where she was found roaming around in Fremont County, where she was seen as a bit of a big nuisance.

Arriving in Jackson, she was taken in by the Animal Adoption Center, but stayed at the Broadway location only a few hours. That evening she hopped in another vehicle and went home with potential adopter Danielle Harrity — and “that was it,” Harrity said.

The pup quickly assimilated to her new life in Wilson, making nice with the resident dog, Levi, a 4-year-old greater Swiss mountain dog, two kids and three horses.

She was given a new name by Harrity’s husband, who announced one night at dinner: “I think she’s Stella.”

They all agreed, though in the past few

KATHRYN ZIESIG / NEWS&GUIDE Jenna Martin and Paige Johnston carry one of the two dogs off the Dog is My CoPilot plane on May 28 at the Driggs-Reed Memorial Airport. The pilot Craig Colton, based in Driggs, began his trip at 6a.m. and arrived back home with the two final dogs around 5p.m. “It’s all in a day’s work,” Colton said.

days they’ve also realized that calling the dog spurs a response from their daughter, 9-yearold Ella. But the dual response is one the family is willing to work with and laugh off.

Stella “just seems like an amazing part of the family already,” Harrity said. “She just loves being with us and has such a lovely energy — she just really makes us happy.

“It was sort of an immediate fit. It just feels like she’s always been with our family.” Problem population

Twenty years ago this type of animal rescue wasn’t a likely one in Teton County, which was battling its own problems with homeless and unwanted pets.

Before the PAWS of Jackson Hole spay/ neuter voucher program, money wasn’t available to neuter the pets that found their way to the Jackson/Teton County Animal Shelter. The lack of sterilization had animal lovers and advocates worried that even after the hundreds of animals that needed homes found them, the shelter would fill right back up.

For the years that records are available — 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 — that’s essentially what happened, according to PAWS. During those years the shelter cared for an average of about 650 animals annually.

“We had lots of dogs in the shelter, lots of cats in the shelter — and it was hard to place them,” said Ann Smith, who founded PAWS in 1999. “There were fewer people and most people already had a dog. That was why I wanted to do something to help the shelter.”

Smith, alongside a handful of “dog-loving” women, launched the group around a kitchen table. They “made it up” as they went along, Smith said, raising money to support the shelter through small events and private donations.

Nearly 10 years after its humble beginnings, PAWS — which “doesn’t stand for anything; it’s just something easy to put on a hat or a shirt,” Smith said — rolled out what would become the cornerstone of the nonprofit’s work: spay/neuter vouchers. In the years since the program launched, the homeless animal population in the community has dwindled. In turn, numbers of dogs housed in kennels at the Jackson/Teton County Animal Shelter plummeted.

“Because we are spaying and neutering everything that comes up, the stray population of dogs in Jackson is nonexistent,” PAWS Program Director Jess Farr said.

The same essentially holds true for the feline population, which has also been curbed with the nonprofit’s Trap-Neuter-Release program, which captures feral cats, spays/neuters the animals and returns them to the wild.

The organization has since expanded its spay/neuter work to Star Valley and Teton County, Idaho, issuing about 1,200 vouchers a year among the three communities. Such prevention work has transitioned Jackson Hole from one whose municipal shelter housed upward of 40 dogs and 60 cats to one that cares for a handful of felines and maybe eight canines on any given day, PAWS Executive Director Amy Moore said.

The shelter, located south of town near the Teton County Recycling Center, remains home base for impounded dogs who have been picked up roaming the streets or See AdoptiON on 8