Happily surrounded by pets at home — two Siamese cats, two dogs and two more foster dogs — Kim Pedersen has an endless supply of cute animal stories, no doubt.

Then she goes to work, and the tails continue.

Pedersen recently joined the Progressive Animal Welfare Society of Bainbridge Island and North Kitsap as its new development officer.

Pedersen began the interview process in May, and officially came aboard in June.

Longtime animal lover

Pedersen has lived in Poulsbo for about seven years, and is originally from Minnesota. After hearing stories of the great Pacific Northwest from her brother, who was stationed in Washington while in the Navy, Pedersen decided to make the big move.

“I grew up in Northern Minnesota and kind of had my fill of the snow and the cold, and decided I wanted to go live someplace different in the country,” Pedersen said.

After settling in her new home, Pedersen discovered an opening at PAWS online.

“I was checking things out online and saw that PAWS was looking for a development officer,” Pedersen said. “I’ve been in business development and marketing for 20-plus years, but I’ve also been an animal lover my entire life.”

Being no stranger to working with animals, given her childhood on a farm, it seemed like fate for Pedersen to work for an animal welfare organization.

“I grew up on a horse farm in Minnesota. I’ve had horses and cows and ducks, cats, bunnies, and all sorts of animals. And I just thought if my work is involved in animals, it would just be the most perfect thing that I could do,” Pedersen said.

Raising awareness, funds

As development officer, Pedersen’s main job is to educate the community about PAWS’ programs and how PAWS benefits animals and pet owners in its community.

“One of the things I’m finding is that a lot of people think PAWS is simply about animal adoption,” Pedersen said. “But we have so many different programs that people aren’t aware of, and that’s part of my job to let them know that we run things like the Kitsap Lost Pets website for Kitsap County, we have a pet food bank, we do veterinary assistance, we have a barn cats program, and many other programs.”

Without the support of the community, however, PAWS could not continue with its vital mission.

“PAWS is 100 percent funded by the community; we don’t receive any government funding,” Pedersen said. “My job is to get the community to know about what we do, and, in turn, get the community to help support PAWS financially.”

Local support is huge

The Bainbridge and North Kitsap communities have been incredibly supportive of PAWS in the past, and Pedersen hopes to maintain their support.

“One of the really fun things that I like to do is go out to local events and talk to people, and set up a PAWS booth,” Pedersen said. “If I’m out in the community with a name tag or a shirt that says PAWS, people will be like ‘Oh, PAWS!’ They absolutely love it.”

At the Grand Old Fourth of July Parade on the island, Pedersen set up a “dog cooling station” because of the exceptionally high temperatures that day.

“We went and got a kiddy pool and filled it with ice, and had a dog cooling station,” Pedersen said. “These dogs cooling off in the ice were absolutely in heaven!”

Though PAWS does have a handful of permanent employees, the organization is heavily comprised of volunteers.

“[The job] is a combination of working with the staff members that we have and the volunteers,” Pedersen said. “We rely very heavily on our volunteers — they help staff our adoption centers, help us out with marketing. It’s incredible what our volunteers do, and we’re always looking for volunteers.”

In addition, PAWS also has numerous organizations and establishments that provide monetary donations. Its annual spotlight event provided an opportunity for community members and organizations to contribute.

“We just had our annual spotlight in June, and the amount of donations we received was really incredible,” Pedersen said.

Pedersen hopes to keep the support for PAWS consistent, and is working with the nonprofit’s board of directors on sustainability plans for its welfare.

“I’ve been working with the board, and sitting down in the development committee and coming up with a plan for the next year to really get the exposure out there for PAWS,” Pedersen said.

She hopes that through educating the public, PAWS will gain additional exposure as well as financial support.

Pets and Loving Seniors

One program that PAWS facilitates is Pets and Loving Seniors, or PALS.

“We usually place senior animals with senior adults for companionship, but PAWS still retains ownership of the animal in case anything were to happen to the senior person,” Pedersen said. “We cover their food, their veterinary care, their litter and other things like that.”

And for seniors, having an animal in the home has great health benefits.

“It reduces depression rates,” Pedersen said. “It’s really beneficial health-wise to have a companion animal in the home.”

PAWS has also initiated a fairly new program that places animals in kennels when their owner is in danger because of a troubled relationship.

“There are a lot of people who don’t want to leave a violent situation because they don’t want to leave their animal,” Pedersen said. “That’s their furry kid.”

“It’s already going to be traumatic with them leaving what they know, but if they’re not sure about what’s going to happen to their animal, it adds this whole level of fear that doesn’t need to be there,” Pedersen added.

Right Dog, Right Home

PAWS also supports a program called Right Dog, Right Home, which is led by adoption program co-manager Melissa Byrd.

“It’s basically a doggie matchmaking service,” Pedersen said. “Melissa’s down at the humane society, and she knows all these other animal welfare groups. She’s really familiar with the dogs that they have, the animals they have, and so if somebody says, ‘I would like a dog that’s small, with this type of personality, and this age,’ she does basically a matchmaking service for them.”

“It makes a huge difference to be able to get the right animal in the right home,” Pedersen added.

Recently, four senior dogs lost their owner, and were in need of a new home.

But through the help of social media, veterinary assistance, PAWS and the community, the four dogs were not alone for long.

“Senior pets are hard to adopt out of a shelter system, period,” Pedersen said. “Senior pets with medical needs? It’s almost impossible. PAWS stepped up very quickly and said, ‘We’re going to take care of these medical expenses — so we did extensive dental work, we did tumor mass removal, and got these dogs to the point where we could adopt these dogs out, or make it easier to adopt these dogs out.”

One of the dogs has been adopted into a family on Bainbridge, and another was adopted by one of the vet techs that aided in the dogs’ medical issues. One is currently in a foster home, and the fourth is in a permanent foster home.

Facebook played a large role in rehoming the dogs.

“It helps to share on social media, like our Facebook page and share stories, so more people become aware of what PAWS does,” Pedersen said. “When we had the four dogs on Facebook, we had people sharing the story, and it was absolutely incredible. It makes a huge difference to get our mission out there when we have really strong social media support.”

Generous foster parents also greatly assisted in finding all four dogs homes.

“We are always looking for fosters, people who are willing to open up their homes to help animals,” Pedersen said. “That makes a huge difference when we know we’ve got this core group of fosters that we can count on. Emergencies happen, and we might get a litter of kittens that come from a feral cat colony. Our goal is to take these feral kittens and socialize them to where they can be adopted in a home.”

The home team

“Our whole goal is to keep pets in homes,” Pedersen explained.

Pedersen is extremely passionate about the animals she serves in the PAWS community, and also has animals of her own that she dearly loves.

She has two Siamese cats, one 17-year-old male named Pooh, and one 16-year-old female named Sassy.

“I love cats,” Pedersen said. “My whole life, I’ve only had a three-month period where I didn’t have a cat.”

She also has a chocolate lab named Tucker, who is a rescue dog that was found tied to a tree in the middle of the woods left to die.

Pedersen also has a yellow lab named Avery, who is quite nimble on his feet.

“She’s a dock jumper,” Pedersen said. “She competes in dock jumping; it’s amazing. Her best jump is 18 feet, 11 inches, and she absolutely loves it out there.”

Two foster dogs have also found comfort in her home, one named Cornelius, and the other named Scooby.

PAWS has been helping animals in need for more than 40 years, and Pedersen said she couldn’t be prouder to help their cause.

With Pedersen’s plans for the future, and the continuation of support from the community, PAWS is sure to carry on for another 40 years.