Pets with People

Buster’s Paw Prints Makes Its Mark…

In the development process of a grassroots nonprofit, there’s often a grappling of when to go from volunteer activity to an official designation. For friends Colleen Lewis and Nichole Bethurem, the decision came in honor of a beloved pet after a few years of taking action with personal resources. “We founded Buster’s Paw Prints after my dog Buster Brown passed away in 2019,” says Bethurem. The work evolved so that it sought official nonprofit status in 2021.

Buster’s Paw Prints has made its mark on the people and pets of Tehama County through a variety of activities designed to keep them together despite poverty or lack of housing. “One key point is to keep pets with their people and out of a shelter,” says Lewis, secretary/treasurer of
the organization.

The activities are diverse in scope and geography and include a pet food pantry, vaccination clinics, spay/neuter services, a dog park at the PATH Navigation Center for pets of the unhoused, and more as the needs reveal themselves. “The one I’m most passionate about is our compassionate euthanasia program,” says Bethurem. “We are getting a lot of requests at shelters for people to surrender their pets.” Often, the pets are too infirm to be cared for anymore.

Buster Brown himself was a shelter dog who arrived for the first time at 12 weeks old after being hit by a car and losing a leg. He’d lived for a while with an unhoused person who cared deeply for him, but still found himself in and out of the shelter until Bethurem adopted him for the last 10 months of his life. “He clearly left a huge impact on me in that little bit of time,” she says. “We thought Buster’s Paw Prints was the best way to honor him.”

“The dynamic of animal welfare is changing,” says Bethurem. “Hopefully people are realizing value of the companionship of having a pet no matter your life circumstance. I’m personally really, really happy to see this shift. The biggest hurdle we see locally is helping understand that we don’t need to take a pet.”

“This year I attended the My Dog is My Home conference, which focuses on how to provide the best service to the unhoused,” she adds. “I learned to make sure you are a familiar face, known and trusted. You really just need to be boots on the ground.” The two have made themselves well-known at the PATH Navigation Center, where every guest with a pet receives a health record of vaccinations. “It adds a level of human respect that everyone deserves.”

For Lewis, a consideration to delve so deeply in the work of Buster’s Paw Prints comes from her former work at the jail, and as a PATH board member for the past 10 years. “I saw a lot of people who never had a chance,” she says. “What could have been different for them? What could have made a difference in their life? It takes so little to make a difference.”

For many, especially seniors, the pet pantry is what allows them to keep their pet with them rather than surrender it to a shelter. Many will choose to feed a pet over themselves when funds are tight. The pantry supports them so they don’t have to choose.

“You just never know when you may have a catastrophic event and end up in a shelter,” says Lewis. “We don’t want something like that to ever separate someone from their pet.”

For Bethurem, joy comes in watching people pay their services forward. She recalls with fondness a family that offered to cook her a much-lauded spaghetti dinner in exchange for euthanasia services for a very ill small dog. Instead, she found a foster dog for the family that was a perfect fit.

When choosing projects, the two look to shelters to see what trends are and what the greatest needs are. They’ve learned to hyper-focus on one community at a time to do things well and with care. For example, it’s not enough to offer spay/neuter services in town to residents of Rancho Tehama without personal vehicles when pets aren’t allowed on public transportation. Services have to come with animal transportation to be used.

While the needs are great and ever-evolving, Buster’s Paw Prints is there to support success. “Everyone needs help sometimes. It could happen to any of us. We all need help,” says Bethurem. “Everyone can love an animal no matter the circumstances,” adds Lewis. •

Buster’s Paw Prints
www.busterspawprints.org