By: <Maddy Kunstel>

After a long day at her 9-5 job working for BI-Mart’s corporate office, Pauline Maitlen comes home to trade in her office attire for dog hair covered sweatshirts. Outside of her day job, Pauline is on the Board of Directors at Wiggly Tails Dog Rescue, a Eugene based rescue dedicated to saving the lives of dogs from high kill shelters. “We take these dogs from bad situations, give them stability and love, and help them in their journey to their forever homes. That is our quest.” Pauline spends her time helping with adoptions, fostering dogs, and doing graphic design work for Wiggly Tails. Pauline has always loved animals, but never thought it would become part of her line of work. Now, she can’t imagine a life without them. “I would even work at a Bat Sanctuary if they had one here locally,” Pauline laughs.

 

Her love of dogs started at a young age, but it wasn’t until she adopted her dog Pixie that she realized what she could do to make a difference. After spending days on Petfinder searching for the perfect dog, Pauline came across Pixie, a one-year-old Chihuahua from a kill shelter in California. Pauline met with Pixie at a Wiggly Tails adoption event and fell in love. With broken teeth and a shaking body, Pauline could tell that Pixie was in need of a loving home. “She had been on the streets and had a pretty rough life.” After adopting Pixie, Pauline knew she had to do more to help out at risk dogs, and contacted Wiggly Tails to see what she could do. “I started volunteering at the events with my brother, and then it just blossomed from there. I got more and more involved because I think it’s a really important cause.” Her volunteer work then sparked into a permanent position on Wiggly Tails’ board of directors.

 

Pixie is now 14 years old, and has become the sweetest earth. “She is just so happy, it’s like she knows that she is just in such a good place now.” Through Pixie and Wiggly Tails, Pauline has truly found her calling working with rescue dogs. She hopes that in the future she will be able to do as much as possible to help out dogs at risk of euthanasia, and that society as a whole will start taking action against kill-shelters, for dogs deserve so much better. “Dogs are amazing,” Pauline says. “They are the one creature on earth that love you more than they love themselves.”