Hawaiian creature comfort and the Humane Society

No matter what luxury accommodations or loving caregiver you arrange for your dog while on vacation, there’s always one suffering party – you! Picture lying on a beach in Maui and longing for your pet. It can be agonizing, but the Maui Humane Society (MHS) has a pair of creative ways to ease the pain.

“We have visitors stop by our shelter on a daily basis, just wanting to be around the animals,” says Jocelyn Bouchard, CEO of the Maui Humane Society. “Until now, we didn’t have any organized way for them to get involved here, unless they wanted to adopt a pet."

Helping Paw Program:

Relieve pet deprivation by volunteering at the Maui Humane Society.  Every Wednesday and Thursday from 1 to 4 p.m. visitors from age ten and up can offer a “helping paw” at the Humane Society shelter. Half-day sessions include a brief orientation and pre-planned activities that go beyond dog walking such as brushing cats, bathing puppies and playing with kittens and puppies, an important part of their socialization. There’s a host of other ways to help too. For the vacationer not minding getting mussed, help is also needed with maintenance, kennel cleaning or gardening.

Wings of Aloha Adoption Transport:

For visitors willing to add to their ‘baggage,’ there’s a simple way to help the island community ease its limited resources and over-crowded pet population. In the past few months, the ‘Wings of Aloha’ program has been created to help bring adoptable animals to shelters in communities with room for new pets. Most pets can fly for nominal fees when boarding with a ticketed passenger. In the last few months, more than two hundred pets have found new families in Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Canada.

The Maui Humane Society makes it easy. Contact MHS with details of your confirmed flight and a staff member will meet you at the Kahului airport during check-in to help get the animal on board (they don’t sit with passengers). Then the partner agency will be there at your destination to care for and pick up the animal.

Suppose you bond with your new found Maui friend? You wouldn’t be alone: “Visitors often fall in love with one of our shelter pets and decide to adopt it,” notes Bouchard. MHS ensures that the animals are always going to loving homes, helps to streamline the adoption application process and she says that, “Transporting your new pet with you to your home city, even internationally, is usually not complicated.”

The programs are a win-win-win for all concerned – visitors who love animals, the MHS staff who appreciate the volunteer help and most of all, the shelter animals who benefit so much from interaction with compassionate people. For more information visit The Maui Humane Society website.

Photo courtesy of the Maui Humane Society