Our History & Impact
The Pima Alliance for Animal Welfare (PAAW) was created in 2012 to facilitate collaboration among local groups and animal welfare supporters to help ensure that all Pima County companion animals have a loving home and humane care.
Over the past decade, PAAW has supported Pima County’s animals by building voice and collaboration amongst stakeholders in the animal welfare world. PAAW brings together animal-loving representatives from nonprofits, county shelters, rescue groups, churches, businesses, and more and has hosted dozens of community-wide gatherings to facilitate shared learning with presentations by local and national animal welfare experts.
Early on, PAAW became involved in efforts to reduce the number of animals euthanized in Southern Arizona. Through much hard work on the part of many community stakeholders, our municipal shelter went from euthanizing 15,000 animals each year to saving more than 90 percent of the pets that come through its doors, making it one of the top public shelters in the country.