11/17/2025
💜 Announcement from Pawprints of Portales Rescue 💜
Dear Friends and Supporters,
It is with heavy hearts; we are announcing that Pawprints of Portales Rescue is officially closing its doors. This decision has not been easy, and it comes after many months of reflection, challenges, and difficult realities.
Pawprints of Portales began in 2020 as a small, dedicated cat rescue founded by a military spouse with a simple mission: help the animals who needed it most. In 2022, leadership transitioned to our current president, Bobbi VanDyke, who helped the rescue grow in both size and mission.
Over the years, PPOP expanded far beyond cats and kittens. We opened our doors—and our hearts—to dogs, lizards, chickens, rabbits, ferrets, hedgehogs, and countless other animals in need. We supported spay and neuter services, provided vaccines and vetting, and assisted not only the animals in our care but also many community-owned pets.
Unfortunately, the time has come to dissolve the rescue. This is due to a combination of factors:
• A lack of volunteers and fosters
• Shortages of supplies and donations
• Personal health considerations that make continuing unsustainable.
Despite these challenges, we look back with immense pride. Over the years, hundreds of animals from the Clovis and Portales shelters, and from our community, found safety, healing, and forever homes through PPOP. We partnered with out-of-state rescues, made lifesaving transfers, and showed up for every animal we possibly could.
Rescue work is beautiful, but it is also exhausting, emotionally demanding, and nonstop. While our organization is closing, our passion for animals is not. You will still see our volunteers at local spay/neuter clinics, vaccination events, and helping animals in new ways. This chapter is ending—but our mission continues.
To our friends, supporters, fosters, volunteers, donors, and the entire community: Thank you. Your compassion made everything possible. We truly could not have done any of this without you, and we love you all deeply.
A very special thank you to our partners at Petsense in Clovis. Your adoption kennels helped countless cats find their forever homes, your store hosted our events, provided food donations and essential supplies. Your staff and company have been incredibly supportive, and we are grateful for everything you’ve done to help our rescue animals.
Though we are sad to say goodbye to Pawprints of Portales Rescue, we are incredibly proud of what we accomplished together. 💛🐾
With heartfelt gratitude,
- The PPOP Team
