PAWS
2
Posted by: Hopkins Insider | 
March 8 2010 | 
Comments (2)
Name: Heather Ehrlich
Year: Class of 2011
Hometown: Philadelphia, PA
Major: Behavioral Biology
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My name is Heather Ehrlich, and I am a junior from Philadelphia who is passionate about animals more than 
anything else. I got really lucky, Hopkins Pet and Animal Welfare Society was started September of my freshman year, and welcomed anyone who wanted to join. Our founder, Ashley Kennedy, was aware that there weren’t any animal welfare focused groups on campus, and for animal-lovers like me, this was a bit of a problem. However she posted the first meeting in the daily announcements, and I signed up right away! I missed that first meeting, but at all of the subsequent meetings I realized that I had found the perfect club for me. I met many like-minded people, both freshmen and upper classmen, and I found an outlet for the severe missing of my dogs back home. Yes, I was in heaven.
Throughout my freshman year, PAWS grew both in numbers and in focus. We started off by going to BARCS, an animal shelter downtown, where we walked the dogs and socialized the cats. It was amazing, these incredibly sweet dogs to play with in the name of community service. Then we started to do other things, like visit the World Pets Expo and going to an animal sanctuary. We held bake sales as fundraisers for the shelter, and watched as our tasty baked goods went to helping getting the animals we walked a better quality of life. We also the tradition of the Doggie Date 
Auction, a classy event in which PAWS members dressed to the nines and sold a picnic date with themselves and a shelter pooch to the highest bidder. Characters such as “Agent K9”, “Rough Rover”, and “Princess and the Pooch” were just a few of the personas sold off that evening along with gourmet picnic baskets. Myself, I went as the “Doggie Dominatrix”, and came away with the title of Best in Show. We managed to raise over $800 from the event, it was a huge success, if you want to read about it, a fellow PAWS member wrote a guest blog specifically about the ‘09 Doggie Date Auction.
Of course, when it came time to elect an executive board for the next year, I ran for vice president. The club has a number of board positions people can have if there are interested in taking on more responsibility within the group: President, Vice President, Advisor, Treasurer, Secretary, and BARCS Liaison. Of course, no one has to take on a role on the board, we are happy to have lots of people who want to be normal members, but there are some of us who have a little more time that they want to give to the group, and in that case you can be on the board. Anyone is welcome to run for a board position at the end of every semester when we have a meeting to discuss the next semester’s board.
It was great to get more involved in an organization I already cared so much about. We ordered club shirts, got even more members, and had a group of people going to the shelter almost every day of the week. This time, the Doggie Date Auction made over $1600; it was absolutely incredible. I got to plan events such as the Santa Paws party around the holidays and organize a trip to a vegan thanksgiving potluck at Poplar Springs Animal Sanctuary. Not to
mention I got to play with a lot of sweet dogs and cats. Sophomore year, I also started to foster kittens from the shelter. Unfortunately, BARCS has horrible overcrowding problems, and kittens under 8 weeks old can’t be taken away from their mothers. So, if there are too many litters, the non-adoptable kittens are most likely to be put down. Fostering these kittens until they were old enough to be adopted was hectic and wonderful, they were so cute and it felt great to know that I was saving lives. Plus we found them all great homes, which was a wonderful feeling.
During spring break, 10 PAWS members took a trip to Puerto Rico where we volunteered at an animal shelter down there. It was wonderful, Hispanic dogs in the morning and lying on the beach in the afternoon. We taught many of the animals how to leash walk, washed them, and renovated/painted a new quarantine room for them that would be a peaceful place for sick 
animals to rest. We also spent some time galloping horses down the beach and exploring the rainforest El Yunque. It was the perfect blend of relaxing spring break and doing a good deed. Right after that trip, I took over as PAWS president, and it felt wonderful to take responsibility for my favorite group.
This year, I will be leaving PAWS in order to go spend some time studying ecology in Australia. I know I’ve left it in very able hands, but definitely cannot wait to return to it for my senior year. If you want to have a look at what’s going on while I’m away, our page on the student activities website: http://jhu.mystudentgroups.com/groups/261 and our own website http://jhu.edu/paws/about.html are frequently upadated with information about what we’re doing, how to get involved, and when the meetings are (usually one evening a week for about an hour).
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interactive information service — March 19, 2010 @ 12:26 AM
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Hopkins Interactive Guest Blog » Guest Blog on Summer Break 2010 — May 7, 2010 @ 11:57 AM
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