HORSEPLAY: A call to help those who help the community

I TIP MY hat to three passionate, action-orientated and strong women who are life-long animal rescuers and advocates — Deb Pavlich-Boaz, Martha Vaughan and daughter Shelby Vaughan.

Currently Deb and husband Tony Boaz are using their retirement years to give older, unwanted and abused animals a chance to live their final years in peaceful serenity at their farm in Agnew.

Martha is a successful businesswoman who lives with several rescue dogs. She owns Fox-Bell Event Center in Agnew and several rental properties.

Shelby shares her mother’s calling to take in rescued animals. She owns Fox-Bell Equestrian Farm & Training Center in Agnew, owns several rescued dogs and, with the farm’s success, is able to self-fund the rescue and rehabilitation, feed and pay the vet bills of the farm’s 60 rescued horses.

Deb invited me to sit in on a meeting with the Vaughans at Fox-Bell Event Center. She’d invited people from several local animal rescue groups. They represented a variety of animals — equine, dogs, cats, pigs, goats, chickens, birds — in need.

Since 2008, Deb and her husband Tony have spent countless hours each month helping other organizations in ways such as transporting individual animals to doctor’s appointments, or new homes, along with delivering hay, feed and food across Western Washington.

After years of self-funding their own rescued farm animals, she recently started up the nonprofit Rainshadow Equine Sanctuary Team as a means for feed supply companies, and other businesses, to get a tax write-off when donating food and supplies, which she in turn gives to individual animal owners or rescue groups in need. She also hopes to use it as a springboard in fostering collaboration among other rescue and sanctuary organizations.

“We have all these wonderful people helping animals who’ve never met each other,” Deb said. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all got to know each other, so we could share resources and to offer support and aid to each other?’”

A future goal is to set up several convenient “feed dropoff and pickup points that would be more convenient and less time-consuming for each organization,” she said.

She also spoke about the surplus of unwanted animals and the importance of getting every animal with the ability to reproduce spay or neutered.

“Everyone at my place is spayed or neutered, the rabbits, chickens, birds, goats and horses,” she said, “even the husband of 50 years.”

Did I mention Deb’s got a wonderfully witty and sarcastic sense of humor?

To donate to the Rainshadow Equine Sanctuary Team, visit its Facebook page and click on the Zeffy donation button. “What I like about Zeffy is 100 percent goes the sanctuary rescue, with none going to PayPal or any other organization,” she said.

And then she turned to Martha and Shelby and said, “Some exciting times are coming, because in answer to OPHS closing its doors to dogs, Fox-Bell is opening a new dog shelter, and we all know Martha and Shelby have a magic touch with finances.”

It’s true, the Peninsula Humane Society has closed its dog and cat doors to the public, and are no longer taking in animals. I spoke with its community outreach spokesperson Tuesday who said the organization is in the process of restructuring and has plans to reopen after combining both the Kitty City and Bark House compounds into one soon-to-be-named location.

It’s exciting to see the Vaughans working diligently to open the Fox-Bell Humane Society in Clallam County. I object to Deb’s notion the duo’s business acumen is “magical.” They are smart, hard-working and capable businesswomen who have a proven track record of running financially stable and profitable businesses, along with self-funding their rescue animal operations.

However, funding and supporting a county humane society is beyond the scope of what they are able to fund as individuals, which is why Fox-Bell Humane Society will be operating under OPEN’s nonprofit license — Olympic Peninsula Equine Network’s 501(c)(3) — and looking to the community for donations to help support it.

And when the county’s contract with a humane society goes out to bid, they’re looking toward getting the contract.

“We are geared up and ready to go!” Martha said. She’s already purchased three of the five specialized tiny homes converted to the sound- and water-proofed dog kennels necessary to get the dog shelter up and running as soon as possible. The process is made easier because the property is zoned commercial. They’ve already gotten approval from the county to turn the 3 acres behind their event center into the Fox-Bell Humane Society. Gradually, they will add housing and space for cats, horses and other animals.

And they’ve already begun offering low-cost spay and neuter clinics at Fox-Bell Farm, in cooperation with Save & Spay and PA veterinarian Dr. Pat Dowell and her 33-foot mobile hospital van.

“Most people aren’t even aware we have an ongoing crisis with animal overpopulation,” Martha said.

Getting all animals with the ability to breed spayed or neutered is a top priority, Martha said. “If the community pitches in by donating money, even as little as $5 a month, we can get this crisis under control in a year.”

She’s already used her own money to pay for the spaying of other people’s dogs.

“I recall getting upset over it, saying it wasn’t our responsibility,” Shelby said. “She goes, ‘No, it’s not our responsibility, but we are going to do it because it’s the right thing to do.” Another lesson in humanity Shelby’s learned to live by.

In addition to monetary donations, they need more items donated for their live and silent auctions held at their New Year’s Eve Ball and Doggie Valentine’s Day events.

“If anyone wants to donate a tiny house or a car, we’ll take them!” Martha said. “We’ll take anything that will provide more funds to help the animals.”

They could also use more volunteers to help with fundraising projects, and people of expertise in areas relating to helping animals, running a nonprofit and promotions on social media platforms. Martha asked them to email her at blakelyhillfarm@msn.com.

To donate and/or sign up for upcoming low-cost spay/neuter clinic promotions, view Shelby’s Fox-Bell Farm & Training Facebook page. A gofundme account has been set up at https://gofund.me/245611ab. To donate by check, mail it to Fox-Bell Humane Society, PO Box 276, Carlsborg, WA 98324.

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Karen Griffiths’ column, Peninsula Horseplay, appears the second and fourth Saturday of each month.

If you have a horse event, clinic or seminar you would like listed, email Griffiths at kbg@olympus.net at least two weeks in advance. You can also call her at 360-460-6299.