No Pause for Paws Hoofs and Claws in the pandemic

That monster, Paws, Hoofs and Claw, the Mount Isa-based animal rescue charity she founded in 2010, has grown into a massive creation that uses social media to get its message out across the land with thousands of likes and shares.

Through it, Sue and a small group of dedicated animal lovers in Mount Isa have providing fostered refuge to thousands of abandoned, abused, surrendered and orphaned animals.

The not-for-profit's mission is to reunite lost or found animals with their owners, find suitable permanent homes for abandoned animals, rescue animals from the local pound, address animal cruelty issues and educate the community on the suitable care of animals.

These aims are difficult to achieve at the best of times and the COVID-19 pandemic has only added to the complexity of Paws, Hoofs and Claws' operation.

Ms Carson said the main impact was transporting animals out of town.

"We were moving two or three animals out of Mount Isa every week, all over Australia but mainly to Victoria and South Australia," Ms Carson said.

"We have not been able to get an animal out on a plane for six weeks. We predominately used Virgin because they were cheaper but that disappeared overnight and Qantas went from 14 flights to two and with all their freight they probably can't take an animal on."

Ms Carson said that left only road transport and it could take over a week to get an animal to Victoria which was not feasible,

"Rescue groups have been helping us out by taking animals out of the pound and they've sent a bus and trailer three times in the last month to take back as many as 40 animals," she said.

Luckily too the organisation has a number of foster carers in Mount Isa who look after animals for a short while before they get to their forever home.

"We've got a dozen animals that people have paid deposits on, and they are prepared to wait a long time, they love their animals so much," Sue said.

Ms Carson said she always loved animals.

"Even when I was at uni I was rescuing them. I had a house mother at our accommodation and she must have been an angel because every week I would find a stray cat or dog and she would drive me 25km to the RSPCA every week," she said.

She took her love of animals to a new level eleven years ago after a few serious incidents in Mount Isa.

"The pound had been having a lot of bad incidents and someone had paid for the release of their own dog named Biscuit and because of poor communication Biscuit was euthanised and the family was devastated," she said.

"It happened several times with other dogs so there was an uproar and a public meeting was called and somehow at the end of it I ended up as the new president, and sometimes I think I have created a monster!"

Sue works 80 hours a week keeping the monster at bay but says she relies on crucial staff.

"Our treasurer Belinda Anderson and my 'right hand man' Paula Boon, those two are invaluable and more recently Jonah Graham, part of our fundraising team, we have not been able to fundraise we've got people donating weekly or fortnightly so we still have money coming in," she said.

Sue said seeing how dogs transformed was what kept her going all these years.

"I get updates from all over Australia about how their dogs are going, I have friends all over Australia," she said.

"But I say to people don't get a dog unless you are prepared to give it what it needs, which is only food, accommodation and love."

Love it as much as she does, the time may come soon where Sue will want to pass on the baton,

"It's a massive amount of my time and it's not sustainable and I think I need to move on soon but I also want to know there is somebody or some team who are going to continue the work,' she said.

"I cannot bear the thought the animals don't have a voice and at the moment they have."

SEE ALSO: Pushing the chamber through the pandemic

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