Poochella

MARDI PAWS PRESENTS

Photos by Hope Richard You’d be hard pressed to find a more pet-centric event than the recent Open House & Adoption Event hosted at St. Tammany Parish Dept. of Animal Services in Lacombe. Pet Psychics, Photo Booths, a Kissing Booth with adoptable dogs, and a petting zoo - sounds like a paws-some time!

MARDI PAWS DONATES

ALL DAY PLAY

Have you visited our parish’s only open-admission animal shelter recently? There’s been exciting things happening over at St. Tammany Parish Dept. of Animal Services, and all of them are great for the animals. Even though they turn no animal away and take in almost 4,000 stray, abandoned, ownersurrendered and cruelty confiscated animals a year; they’ve been working like dogs and became a “no-kill” shelter in 2021. That’s truly a remarkable achievement for such a high intake animal control facility.

Mardi Paws, the Northshore’s beloved pooch parade in its 29th year, has been partnering with the shelter to sponsor adoption initiatives, transports and specialized medical care for injured strays, and recently took on Project Play Yards so the pups can play all day while they wait for a forever home. Made possible by their supporters and the community, Mardi Paws has re-done the yards with lots of fun play equipment, pools, sprinkler pads and much more. Exercising and having fun provides much-needed socialization to make the pups more adoptable and gets them out of their kennels and into forever homes much quicker.

If you’d like to see all the new improvements, stop by the shelter on Highway 36 in Lacombe. They also have a recently installed Pet Pantry donated by Girl Scout Kamryn Rouse for her Gold Award Project and welcome food, treats, and toy donations to keep it stocked for those needing a little help. If you’re thinking of welcoming a dog or cat into your home, please consider adopting an animal from them, they can’t keep up these remarkable achievements without the community’s support.