Top 5 Needs | March 9, 2020

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Donations are important to keep any nonprofit running, but this is especially true in animal rescue organizations and shelters. With so many animals that are in need of help and little support from the government, private donations are the backbones of most animal shelters.

While most shelters have their own wishlists (see our Amazon wishlist here), we wanted to take a second to discuss a few our our top needs right now this March!

  1. Cat Litter: If you follow us on social media, you know that we’re always in desperate need of our paper pellet cat litter. We use paper pellet litter, because it’s truly the best for our cats and helps prevent upper respiratory infections associated with traditional litter. At Dorchester Paws, we clean our cages multiple times a day, scooping litter, and we completely replace cat litter approximately once a week. Because of this, we typically go through 6 bags of cat litter every week. With puppy and kitten season approaching, we can predict the number of bags of cat litter that we use every week to nearly double, if not triple.
  2. Paper Towels: Paper Towels are one of the most used products on the Dorchester Paws campus – up there with our different foods and litters. After interacting with an animal, we encourage everyone to wash their hands thoroughly and dry them with a disposable towel. Paper towels are also essential in our cleaning process, specifically when cleaning cat kennels and drying things in dog kennels.
  3. Printer Paper: At Dorchester Paws, we use our printer for just about everything. While we are partnered with a local printer, Mr. Sign, we prefer to do our small printing in the office. With printer paper, we make our kennel cards, we print forms, we share information and sign contracts. It’s our bread and butter and we’re in need of some more!
  4. Adopt Me Harnesses:  We specifically use harnesses when we’re taking our animals out, because it can help reduce the stress that a traditional leash can put on a dog’s neck, it’s safer for the dog and the human walking it, and can assist in training and security when taking the dog out in public. These specific harnesses will be used when taking our dogs out to adoption events and to help our dogs receive more attention when they’re out on dates!
  5. Puppy Food: This is just one brand of the dog food that we use, but it’s important that we have enough! At Dorchester Paws, we accept every brand of food through our donations, even though we prefer Purina animal food. The variety is helpful, because we know that when we’re adopting out, our animals aren’t attached to a specific brand/flavor of food. However, it’s important that we consistently are receiving food donations, as we have been overcapacity for almost a month and puppy and kitten season is approaching.

Our address is 136 Four Paws Lane in Summerville, SC 29483. We couldn’t do what we do without the help of our volunteers, the kindness of our community and the generous donations that we receive constantly.

Thank you so much!