About Us

Mission

We aim to provide the community with an animal assisted program that will help to promote health and well-being through positive interactions with animals.

Goals

Improving peer relations, expressing emotion, gaining impulse control, increasing social skills and communication, showing empathy and compassion, increasing attention skills and cooperation, gaining self-worth and confidence.

Programs

Reading Program

Power Paws provides reading sessions in school and public library settings.  During this program, volunteers and their dogs are matched with students identified by teachers as reluctant readers.  During these sessions, students read aloud to a Power Paws volunteer and their dog.  This process builds the confidence of these students and provides them with an exciting environment to practice their reading skills, which they find less intimidating and more enjoyable.  Learning to read is often less about intellectual limitation than about overcoming fear.

Therapy Program

Power Paws provides visits from our volunteers and their dogs to nursing homes and assisted living facilities.  We use the human-animal bond to improve the quality of life for the residents.  During our visits, volunteers and their dogs travel from room to room allowing residents to pet the dogs.  Residents look forward to interacting with their four legged friends and are forming bonds with the dogs and their owners.  Our visits add warmth and extra love to the lives of these residents.  

Rally Program at Special Needs Schools

We also provide weekly group sessions where participants are matched with a volunteer and their dog for the duration of the program. Students train the dogs for competition in a Rally obedience trial. Activities are goal directed and focus on canine training through positive reinforcement.  This program helps to improve peer relations, expressing emotion, gaining impulse control, increasing social skills and communication, showing empathy and compassion, increasing attention skills and cooperation, and gaining self–worth and confidence.