Get ready for a tail-waggin’ good time.
Paws in the Park, a fundraising event for Leflore County Humane Society’s medicine expenses, will be held Saturday at the park between the Veterans and Keesler bridges in downtown Greenwood. Festivities will begin at 6 p.m.
The event is being held by the Friends for Paws committee, which is not affiliated with the Humane Society but is holding the event to benefit the shelter.
“We came together and formed this group — we have foster dogs, and we work with the shelter a lot,” said Angela Byrd, who is heading the committee and the organization for the upcoming event. “We saw where the shelter was in need of funds for medicine, like heartworm treatments and that kind of thing, so we decided to do an event independent from the Humane Society to raise funds specifically for that cause.”
Other members of the committee include Angie Young, Caleb Cox and Mary Mac Bryant.
“This is nothing out of pocket for the Humane Society,” said Byrd. “We’ve run this purely on sponsor money, and Greenwood’s local businesses have been really good at doing that for us and helping us out.”
Paws in the Park will feature an evening that both pets and their owners will enjoy.
There will be a doggy obstacle course and other games, a doggy costume contest at 6:30 p.m., food, snow cone and beer vendors, a raffle, and inflatables. The Leflore County Humane Society will attend the event with several pets available for adoption.
“It’s just going to be a community of animal lovers out there, and that’s what’s going to be so fun,” said Young.
Later in the evening, starting at 8 p.m., the event will feature live music.
Jason & Mary Mac will take the stage first, and Byrd’s band, Jon & Angela, will close out the event with their last performance of the year.
Paws in the Park will also feature the Leflore County Sheriff’s Department’s K-9 unit. The K-9 officer will do a demonstration on the obstacle course, and then it will be open for the other four-legged attendees to give a try.
Local vets will also be on site handing out goodie bags.
Raffle tickets will be $10 each, and several winners will be announced.
“A lot of businesses helped out and have been great donating prizes to give away in the raffle,” said Byrd.
The winner of the costume contest will receive a 25-quart Engel cooler, which will be loaded down with must-haves for the 2016 college football season. There is a $10 fee to enter the contest.
Byrd has been fostering dogs for the Leflore County Humane Society for about a year.
“I keep them for a couple of months, and they either get adopted or sent to a rescue up north,” she said.
Byrd and her husband, Jon, also have two of their own dogs — both Lab mixes — that they adopted from the Leflore County Humane Society.
“I grew up around dogs my whole life,” said Byrd.
While Byrd was growing up in Franklin, Kentucky, her father was the director of the local Humane Society.
“I watched him work with the Humane Society, and I just grew up taking care of dogs,” she said.
“There’s just plenty of good dogs in shelters that don’t really have a chance unless you pay attention to them.”
Byrd began focusing on her music career full time last year and said she had some spare time, which is when she began fostering animals.
“I didn’t know I’d get quite as involved with (the Leflore County Humane Society) as I have, but it’s been fun,” she said. “I like to work and spend time there and do whatever they need, because they need people up there to volunteer.”
Vivian Norris, Humane Society director, said Byrd has been able to housebreak and crate-train every dog she has fostered.
“She has done so much for this event and helped out so much, and she potty-trains my dogs,” said Norris. “So we love Angela.”
Young also fosters many of the shelters animals. Right now, she has 15 cats and 12 dogs that she is caring for until they get a forever home.
Young and Byrd began talking a couple of months ago about how they would like to raise money for the shelter for medicine so treatments of many contagious illnesses, such as kennel cough, would not put a financial strain on the nonprofit organization.
“She took it and ran with it,” said Young.
Norris said the shelter is very appreciative for the Paws in the Park medicine fundraiser.
“We go through medicine very fast, because you have to think about how many animals we have,” said Norris. “If anything contagious spreads, the costs can add up. You can give them the off-brand, but it’s better to give them the proper meds so they can hurry up and get better and we can get them out to a home.”
At the end of July, the shelter had 46 adult dogs, 34 puppies, 15 adult cats and 54 kittens.
“The faster we can get them ready for adoption, the faster we move them out and the better off we are,” said Norris.
There is no admission fee to attend Paws in the Park. The money will be raised through purchases of items at the event, the raffle fee and the costume contest fee.
“I hope people show up and support this,” said Byrd. “The Humane Society has all of these dogs and cats, and it can’t just adopt them out as soon as it gets them. There is a lot that goes into it, so I hope people show up and have a good time.”
For more information, like Greenwood Paws in the Park on Facebook.
• Contact Ruthie Robison at 581-7233 or rrobison@gwcommonwealth.com.
