Portland Animal Welfare Team
Helping people and pets stay together,
through veterinary care for pets of people in poverty

Who provides the services?
PAW Team is a volunteer-based organization. Services are provided by volunteer veterinarians, vet techs, and others from the Portland community interested in helping people on the streets and their companion/service animals. Our all-volunteer Board of Directors provides guidance to the organization, and the day-to-day activities are now managed by our part-time staff, an Executive Director and Assistant Director, formally hired in Dec 2009.

How many pets do you treat?
In our early years, PAW Team typically saw from 20-40 pets at each quarterly clinic. Each year that number increased bit by bit, until we were caring for an average of 70 animals at each quarterly clinic in 2009, with a few exceptionally heavy clinics where we treated up to 100 pets. When we began our monthly clinics in 2010, we expected to maintain or even decrease our average of 70 or so pets per clinic, since we would be increasing the number of clinics in each year. However, at our monthly clinics in 2010, we treated an average of 142 pets, with no signs of slowing down. In 2011, we had to turn away clients due to lack of funds, and treated between 75-100 pets per clinic, heartbreakingly having to turn away dozens of people and pets each time. There is clearly a tremendous need for these services in our community. Happily, in 2012 we have a lease on a vacant warehouse with enough space to treat large numbers of pets again, and we have raised enough funds to re-open our large monthly clinics for the time being, treating 100-150 pets per clinic.

How is money spent?
Currently, PAW Team spends between 15-17% of our budget on administrative tasks and fundraising.
Nearly 85% of our budget in any given month goes directly to providing care to the pets of people who are homeless, including purchase of supplies for our clinics that we are unable to obtain as donations, preparing and managing our clinics and volunteer services, and managing medical cases.

What programs does PAW Team currently provide and what is planned?
The major PAW Team programs currently in operation include:

  • Monthly veterinary clinics providing preventative and basic health care for pets
  • Vaccine-clinics for pets of homeless people at Bud Clark Commons downtown every other month
  • Message phone and email help-line staffed by vet techs for urgent issues or emergencies, questions about clinics, etc.
  • Spay/neuter services through in collaboration with other animal welfare organizations (our own surgery room coming soon!)
  • Emergency referrals to partner vet clinics through the generous assistance of Animal Rescue and Care Fund
  • Subsidized county pet licensing
  • Chronic care management and prescription diets for pets with long-term medical conditions
  • Client education hand-outs (nutrition, behavior, basic health care, etc) at clinics
  • Dog training workshops and individual training consultations through Safe Dogs By The River

Proposed programs for future implementation:
  • Outreach to homeless shelters and low-income housing owners regarding housing of pets and possible boarding facilities
  • A collaborative one-stop location for numerous pet-related non-profits and commercial businesses providing services to low-income/homeless pet owners and the general public
  • Additional outreach programs with schools and universities

Where are services provided?
Our free animal health care clinics have been held at a variety of homelessness social service agencies throughout Portland, including Outside In, JOIN,and Dignity Village, and at various homelessness events such as the Potluck-in-the-Park Resource Faire, and in conjunction with the Project Homeless Connect events in Portland and in Washington County. Up until mid-2010, our clinics were essentially mobile “MASH”-type units, and we would set up our canopy tents and tables and conduct clinics in parking lots or sidewalk areas or parks. This works well during the beautiful summer weather, but isn’t quite so much fun in the cold and rain of Portland’s winter months. Fortunately, we have very dedicated and tough volunteers who gamely work in whatever conditions we ask of them!


Outside In, an agency serving homeless youth in downtown Portland, generously provided storage space in the basement of the Arts Building, and for a number of years, we gratefully held our clinics in that basement, or if the weather was reasonable, in the courtyard of the new Outside In building. The basement is a bit on the small side for more than 4 vet stations and 50-some pets and clients milling around (our volunteers put up with a lot of close quarters!), and the church next door became concerned about the numbers of people on the sidewalk, so we needed to find some additional space as our needs grew.

In the summer of 2008, Outside In offered to let us share the space they were currently renting for their Tattoo Removal Clinic, and with twice as much space, electricity, and even a restroom (imagine!), our volunteers and clients were much more comfortable and we were able to see more patients. Sadly, after only two clinics held there over a six-month period, the owner of the building decided to return the space to its former adult business, and PAW Team was homeless itself once again.

We were in talks with Multnomah County Animal Services about sharing space, as MCAS was looking to establish a branch near downtown to provide better service and offer cat adoptions. They connected us to the owners of the former Wild Oats/Nature’s grocery building at SE 30th and Division, and in the spring of 2010 they very graciously allowed PAW Team to use the main floor at no cost on a temporary basis. In 2011, the owners asked us to move to the other side of the building, and we began renting that space at a very discounted rate, until the end of the year. A huge thank-you to building owners of the building (who wish to remain anonymous) for allowing us to have clinics there.

PAW Team secured a one-year reduced-rate lease on an empty and very large warehouse space on Front Ave in January of 2012. We are thrilled to be in a large location, with the opportunity to set up a surgery room and space to ensure we continue services. We are truly grateful to the wonderful community-minded owners of the space for supporting our work!!

How did the organization get started?
In the 1990’s several small groups and individual vets and techs were independently helping in their local neighborhoods and in downtown Portland providing vaccinations and basic care to pets on the street a couple times per year. A group of these volunteers came together in late 2003 to form one organization to better serve the health care needs of the pets of people in extreme poverty. The founding members of this non-profit we called PAW Team included Barbara DeManincor, AHT; Heather Dillon, DVM; Sal Jepson, DVM; Wendy Kohn, DVM; and Larry Sams, DVM.

After receiving our tax-exempt status from the IRS in late 2003, we began to offer quarterly vet clinics at various locations throughout Portland, in conjunction with social service agencies such as Outside In and JOIN, and at local homelessness events. The demand for our services increased slowly each year, and the local veterinary community stepped up to volunteer. When the economy crashed in 2008, many more service organizations began to request our clinics and services, and we were seeing double and triple the number of patients. By late 2009, what had started as a reasonable volunteer job had become a nearly full-time task for the main organizers at that time, Wendy, Barbara, and Marilee Muzatko.

The founders of PAW Team, the Board of Directors, and community partners such as Multnomah County Animal Services and Outside In saw this increase in need for services as an opportunity for organizational growth. Thanks to the very generous support of the late Ed Cauduro through an Oregon Community Foundation Donor-Advised Fund, the Board of Directors made the decision to provide a part-time salary to Wendy as Executive Director and to Barbara as Associate Director, so that PAW Team could continue to grow and offer increased services. The staff was formally hired in Dec 2009, and we increased our services to monthly clinics starting in Feb 2010. We continue to offer monthly clinics and to function almost entirely through the work of our wonderful volunteers and our Board of Directors.