About Us
Our Mission
LOVEPAWS was founded as a community outreach organization and animal intake prevention program to help keep pets in homes and out of shelters while also advocating for the PG pitties impacted by the 3rd largest breed ban in the nataion. To do this, we offer various types of assistance to pet owners, including our pet food pantry, re-homing services and intake services. While our focus is on Prince George’s County, MD, we offer these services to the entire DC Metro area. As part of our community outreach, we also assist community cats with our pantry and through facilitation of TNR in partnership colony caretakers and animal local organizations and rescues.
We are engaged in supporting efforts to repeal the decades-old PG County pit bull ban and also assist in fostering and adopting pitties from the PG County animal shelter . From time-to-time, we also intake animals from other overcrowded, open-admission shelters when we have the resources.
LOVEPAWS is a 100% unpaid volunteer-run 501(c)(3) serving the MD, DC, and NoVA areas.
It all started with Coco.
A little JRT named Coco was the inspiration for LOVEPAWS. LOVEPAWS founder Sonya saw Coco’s family in the parking of the shelter while walking to her car after volunteering one day and asked them why they were surrendering Coco. They explained that Coco had masses on her belly and a bad infection in the area that they could not afford to treat. They were visibly upset bringing her to the shelter not knowing what would happen to her. Sonya worked with the to secure low-cost medical care for Coco to have her mammary chain removed and eventually took Coco in as a hospice foster when it was discovered that her cancer had spread. Coco lived 3 happy, spoiled months running around with her new pack, doing a happy dance for her home-cooked dinners and snuggling on the couch with Sonya and her husband until she passed. Every animal LOVEPAWS helps is in memory and honor of Coco. Thank you for inspiring us, sweet girl.
LOVEPAWS was started up by a few volunteers of the Prince George’s County Animal shelter who saw the need for providing assistance to pet owners in the community to help them keep their pets. Time and time again, we saw heartbroken owners in tears walking into the shelter to surrender their pets because they felt they had nowhere else to turn. We worked with these owners to help them keep their pets in their homes, whether it was finding funding to get their pets the medical care they needed, providing food to owners that could no longer afford or educating them and providing them with tools needed to help them care for their high-energy pets. When we couldn’t keep these pets in their homes, we worked with owners to find rescues that would take in their pets.
