Animal advocate Paul Mahar honored
The Warren County Humane Society honored one of its founders recently when the group’s current president, Andy Anderson, presented well-known local animal advocate Paul Mahar with its annual award for people who have worked for the humane treatment of animals.
The award was presented at Mahar’s home where the 84-year-old is recovering from a recent illness, and was unaware the presentation was going to be made.
“At the Humane Society, all of us wanted to do something a little special for you,” said Anderson in presenting the plaque. “Because you’ve done so many special things for us. Every year we give someone this, and we just feel nobody deserves it more than you.”
Anderson then read from the award.
“This is for Paul Mahar in recognition of your many years of devotion to the animals of Warren County, and your unselfish work with the Warren County Humane Society.”
“That’s great. Appreciate it,” Mahar said. “Other than seeing those dogs wag their tail when they leave, this is as good as it comes.”
Mahar said the first Humane Society meeting, in the mid-1970s, was well attended, but there was little money. And though the group found the county had a facility at the time, they soon discovered the conditions there were deplorable.
“What they had was a little 10-by-10, if it was that big, place that was open to the winter,” Mahar said. “And what they did in the morning was they took a big heavy hose and washed all the excrement out, along with the dogs, they got washed into the corner. And when we got there later in the morning, a cold morning, we’d find several with long hair frozen to the floor, and we’d have to chip them out to get them loose.”
Even worse was the county’s method for euthanizing the animals.
“They had a little room about 4-by-4, and every two days they herded all those dogs in there and backed up the truck and killed them by exhaust,” Mahar recalled. “You could hear them coughing and spitting in there, scratching, and we really got busy then.”
Mahar said for the first year or two, he, Joyce Drake and Mary Phillips took on the majority of the responsibility.
“We did most all the work,” he said. “We didn’t have any money to pay an employee.”
Eventually, the group applied to the county and began to get some funds, and the group evolved from there. Mahar says he is pleased with the commission’s recent show of support for the group, but says the main thing is still the animals and their well-being.
He believes, like other Humane Society members, that spay and neuter laws are extremely important. “Or else it defeats our purpose,” he said.