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Paws and Effect affects meaningful change Nonprofit to offer support dogs to first responders BY HANNAH MCLEOD STAFF WRITER hen Asheville Fireman Mark Jameson returned to the fire station after responding to a particularly difficult call, the only thing that lifted his spirits was seeing Denali wagging her tail with excitement upon his return. “We had a call that was DOA, dead on arrival,” Jameson said. “It was an older woman, lived by herself, no one had seen her for a while, and she passed. It’s a fact of life. But inside her house there were multiple dogs in crates, and they had passed away too because of lack of food and water. That’s a sucky call, no one wants to see that.” Responding to these kinds of emergencies can be draining and leave first responders in a dark place, but having a service dog like Denali can make all the difference for frontline workers. Service dog organization called Paws and Effect based in Asheville placed Denali with the Asheville Fire Department in January. Paws and Effect is a nonprofit organization founded in 2006 in Iowa. Nicole Shumate started the organization initially as a distraction from law school and a way to
July 22-28, 2020
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support children at a local children’s hospital where children would learn to guide dogs through agility courses. Soon parents were asking Paws and Effect to help transition dogs out of service in the hospital to be mobility dogs in the community. “It wasn’t the initial plan for the organization, so it was just organic. We became a service dog organization,” said Shumate. Fourteen years later, Shumate has relocated to Asheville and Paws and Effect is a full-blown service dog organization working primarily with veterans, and now emergency service workers, with locations in Iowa and Asheville. Wade Baker was one of the first veterans to receive a service dog — Honor — from Paws and Effect in 2010. Honor was with Baker until he committed suicide in a police shootout in a Haywood County Church in 2015. “Prior to Wade completing suicide, we understood the magnitude of our job, but didn’t really appreciate how bad things could get. It couldn’t have become more clear,” said Shumate. According to Shumate, Paws and Effect is the only service dog organization that has shown up in the media saying that one of their recipients committed suicide. “Everyone wants to tell the story of this beautiful, spit shine
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Service dog Denali pictured with firefighters at Station 7 in Asheville. Donated photo
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