Paws CEO Bobbi Yeo has a heart for pets and their owners

It’s easy to see that Bobbi Yeo cares about her job and it’s impact on Columbus-area pets and those humans who invite them into their hearts and homes.

On a recent day, the California native and Opelika, Ala., resident was leading a foster dog named Lucy to a wooded area near Paws Humane on Milgen Road for a photo shoot with a photographer. Oops! Lucy squatted to relieve herself, with Yeo not missing a beat and quickly using a plastic bag to pick up the waste for disposal, her cheerful tone with the 8-year-old Mastiff never wavering.

It’s that warm patience and a focus on reducing the local pet population through spaying, neutering and community outreach that Yeo, 61, brings to the table as chief executive officer of Paws Humane, a job she has held since November 2014. She leads a staff of more than 30 at the facility, which is located adjacent to Columbus Animal Care & Control Center.

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“We have an amazing staff here, and I could say that’s the most fun thing,” Yeo said of her job. “When you have a staff that is as enthusiastic about what we do as I am, it’s really exciting.”

The community outreach and education will be on full display during the first-ever Barks & Blues Festival scheduled for 2 to 6 p.m. on June 26. It will be a day of music, food trucks, tours, face painting, dog training demonstrations, adoption specials, and simply a chance to meet some furry creatures and perhaps take one home. Admission is free, with off-site parking available.

The Ledger-Enquirer visited with Yeo recently at the Milgen Road facility, discussing her job, her efforts with other animal welfare groups, and why she is working so hard to help Columbus become a no-kill community, meaning no animals would die from euthanasia because of overpopulation. This interview is edited a bit for length and clarity.

Q. Let’s start with people abandoning pets. Do they leave them with you a lot?

A. Because we’re located here next to animal control, people sometimes will tie dogs up in the woods out there, and they’ll leave them in boxes in front of our shelter, or in front of animal control occasionally.

Q. Cats are a particular problem?

A. They can have three litters a year and three to five kittens each litter, and they multiply very, very quickly. That’s what’s so great about Columbus. We don’t have this in Lee County, but here, because our mayor is very proactive and our animal control is very proactive, they wrote a grant and were awarded $700,000 from Best Friends Animal Society. It’s covering the cost of a three-year program. They have a fulltime (Best Friends) employee who works with local cat rescue groups who bring them in and have them spayed and neutered. It’s making a huge difference. It’s one of the most important things you can do in trying to get to no-kill. And getting to no-kill in Columbus is a priority for Paws and Columbus Animal Care & Control.

Q. So progress is being made?

A. Very much so. We used to have about 8,000 intakes at Animal Care & Control every year, and that was in 2009 when they had an 80 percent euthanasia rate. In 2015, I believe it was around 5,000 intakes with a 26 percent euthanasia rate. We are getting very close to no-kill. In fact, in April we were below the 10 percent euthanasia rate. I think it was 8 percent.

Q. What brought you to this career and eventually Paws Humane?

A. I started out in accounting working as a (certified professional accountant) in an audit firm, and it just wasn’t giving me a ton of joy. (laughs) I like working with people, but being audited is not people’s favorite thing. I worked with a lot of nonprofit organizations at the audit firm. Over time, I thought that I wanted to work for a nonprofit because I’m driven more by mission than money. At that time, I had been working for the Catholic Dioceses of Sacramento. Then I went into aging and administered Older American Act funds, so I mostly worked in the capacity of a controller. I gradually expanded to direct administrative and financial services. I also worked for a large mental health agency, and then I went to the Episcopal Dioceses of Northern California. I loved all of that work.

I never really aspired to be an executive director. But one day I decided that over time I had acquired some of the necessary skills – the speaking and writing skills and that sort of thing – and I found out I enjoyed raising money. So I decided before I retired that I wanted to try being an executive director, and when I thought about it, my greatest passion was animals. I was actually surprised: Why did I never go to work in an animal welfare organization? So I did a national search and I ended up at Lee County Humane Society. Then this opened up.

Q. Paws Humane is a bigger facility?

A. Yes. This is a much bigger facility. It has a lot more going on. At Lee County Humane Society, we were about 5,000 square feet. This is over 20,000 square feet. We have a high-volume, low-cost spay and neuter clinic and wellness clinic, and we didn’t have that in Alabama. The law’s restrictive when it comes to who can hire a veterinarian and provide services to the public in Alabama. A nonprofit can’t do that there, but we can in Georgia.

Q. As a financial person, a major mission for you is to raise money?

A. That’s definitely part of my job. One of the primary duties of boards of directors is we’re supposed to work very closely in that pursuit.

Q. What is your annual budget?

A. It’s about $1.5 million.

Q. Do you need more money?

A. Right now we’re working on our fund-raising plan. When we first opened, there was a lot more energy for that, and there’s been a decline. So we’ve been steadily building on our fund-raising activities.

Q. Where does your funding come from?

A. It’s all donations and grants. Grants from national animal welfare organizations and from foundations, and then smaller donations from individuals. That’s the bulk of money that we’re operating with.

Q. Are you good at grant writing?

A. I’ve done a lot of grant writing over the years. I like it. It’s basically just following the directions that they give you. They ask for certain things and you give them that, and that allows them to make a good decision.

Q. What does the facility here offer?

A. Adoptions, and they can receive low-cast spay and neuter services and wellness service. Wellness includes vaccines and flea and heartworm preventative (medicines) for purchase. Those are the main things. Sometimes we do a little extra for people that have demonstrated that they are challenged financially and need help to keep their animals.

Part of the reason we provide wellness services is I have learned, from the reading I’ve done, that studies show that only 50 percent of all pets in the United States see a vet. So what we want to do is help retain pets in the home by offering low-cost services to people who could not otherwise get the basic vaccines and heartworm preventative.

Q. What are the reasons people give up their pets?

A. The primary reason people drop off pets is because they’re moving and they can’t take the pet to the new apartment or home. They’re renters usually. They can’t afford the deposit maybe. Or animals just aren’t allowed in the new home, and that’s heartbreaking. Another reason that’s very common is they just can’t afford the veterinary care. We have two full-time veterinarians.

Q. Do they stay pretty busy?

A. Yes. (laughs) We have talked a lot about adding a third veterinarian.

Q. Another aspect of your job is getting the word out about Paws?

A. Yes. Since I’ve gotten here we’ve really increased the amount of community outreach that we do. We have specific (neighborhood) communities that we have identified as producing the most Animal Care & Control intakes, and we actually go out there and knock on doors and talk to people. We also have put up tables in front of corner markets to talk to people as they come up and tell them about our services. We had one woman who was so thrilled to find out that we could help her. She had nine boxers and she could no way afford to take them to a full-price veterinarian to have them spayed and neutered. It’s $300 to $350 to spay a large female dog. So she was stuck and these dogs kept having more puppies. So she brought them in the very next week after we met her.

Q. How many pets do you keep on site?

A. It varies somewhat, but we’ll have up to 60 dogs and up to 60 cats at any one time. That’s pretty much capacity. It depends on if they’re puppies and kittens, and what (breed and size) they are.

Q. What is your criteria for taking pets?

A. Basically, we’ll take animals with heartworm and we’ll treat them. We’ll take animals with broken bones and all kinds of things, because we do have veterinarians on hand and we work with local veterinarians on issues that are beyond our means.

Q. Are there reasons you won’t take them?

A. Serious aggression. We won’t take them if we don’t feel that we can place them safely in a home. But that’s really about it.

Q. What’s a typical day like for you?

A. It’s so hard to say. I have a column that I write. I write articles for newsletters and things like that. I work with the financial statements and reports to the board about what we’ve done during the past month. We’re doing a fund development strategic planning session on June 27, so I’m getting ready for that by compiling data and converting it into line graphs. It seems like I have all kinds of meetings. Yesterday I spent a good part of my day in an employment law class over at Columbus Tech. I handle human resource issues. I’m always reading. I just read a book on pit bulls.

Q. Do you have any pit bulls here?

A. Absolutely.

Q. You mentioned a group called Pet Coalition. What is that?

A. There are six animal welfare organizations in Muscogee and Harris County and we got together and formed the Pet Coalition. Basically, we have conquered in the Columbus area and in Harris County almost every animal category. We have one group that specializes in neonatal kittens, and we have the community cats project sponsored by Best Friends. So that has helped tremendously with cats in this area.

Little dogs and puppies have always been popular, so the one group of animals that we’re still having a hard time with are large breed dogs, and that’s what the Pet Coalition is focusing on now. We focus on big dogs and pit bulls specifically. We sponsored a movie called, “The Champions,” over at Carmike theater in May. We filled the place, and it’s now available on Netflix. It’s a great movie about the Michael Vick dogs and how they were rescued, and many of them ended up in homes. And they’re great dogs, wonderful dogs.

The Pet Coalition is at PetsMart from 2 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. We have large breed dog adoptions there. The thing that I like about the Pet Coalition is that it brings us all to the table, face to face, to work together. It’s been a really productive group, and a lot of fun.

Q. You want as many people to use Paws Humane as possible, it appears?

A. We try to impress upon everyone who adopts here that we’re a resource. We’re not just somebody who sold you a dog. We’re a resource to you throughout that animal’s life.

Q. It’s a come-back-and-see-us approach?

A. Yes. If you have behavior problems, call us up. We’ll have our vets look at your pet and help find out what’s going on. So whatever they need, we want to be there.

This story was originally published June 18, 2016 at 9:18 PM with the headline "Paws CEO Bobbi Yeo has a heart for pets and their owners."