Wouldn’t it be remarkable if there were someone in Los Banos who cared so much about animals that she would devote her life to finding homes for dogs?
As it turns out, there is. Her name is Christine Tercero, and she runs a non-profit service called “His Paws & Tails,” a registered 501c3 organization.
She has a reader-friendly website (hispawsandtails.com), where individuals can learn more about her organization, what it does and how it works. As the website explains, “His Paws & Tails Rescue and Transport is a foster-based animal rescue and adoption organization serving our local community.
“We rescue animals,” the website continues, “from shelters, owner surrenders and strays that are never claimed and place them into loving homes.”
As it turns out, I needed someone like Christine to help me. I needed to find a place for a friendly dog I had been “fostering” after her owner moved into a new location. My wife and I already have two dogs; a third was one too many for a couple in their mid-70s.
I tried to spread the word among family and friends. “I have this very friendly dog,” I would say. “Wouldn’t you like to have it in your home?”
But the reply I received was either “No, thanks. I already have two/three/four dogs,” or “No, thanks. The last thing I need in my life is a dog, no matter how friendly she might be.”
Finally, I asked people at two places in Los Banos I frequent, Petco and Four Paws Pet Hotel and Grooming. They both suggested I talk with a woman named Christine and gave me her number. When I called, she answered with enthusiasm and said she would indeed try to help me.
She also says she always does a thorough check on persons who wish to adopt a dog, to make sure they provide a safe and caring home.
After talking with and texting her several times and following her suggestions, including sending her photos of my foster dog, Christine called me about ten days later and said she had found a nice couple to adopt it.
I was stunned. I never expected to encounter in my lifetime someone like Christine, so dedicated to helping dogs in need and so efficient.
In one of my conversations with her, she told me about a recent dog she rescued that had been shot and left to die on a canal bank. She found the dog and when she came up to it, she realized the dog’s two hind legs were paralyzed.
She took the dog to Dr. Jaime Flores, the Los Banos veterinarian she works with, who agreed to help keep the dog alive by amputating its back legs. Christine then worked to get the dog a “leg wheelchair”–all this, she said, because she saw in the dog’s eyes a desire and will to live. And before long she found a person to adopt it.
Looking more into His Paws & Tails, I realized that the “H” in “His” is capitalized in the same way “His” in the Bible is capitalized. “I believe I’m doing the Lord’s work,” Christine said, “in helping His creatures.”
She and others she works with in her organization also help families in other ways, as her website notes, “to keep the number of unwanted litters down by providing vouchers for affordable spaying and neutering.”
In addition, she helps families create simple security measures, “such as fixing loose boards and locks that will keep their pets from escaping.”
Christine is described on the His Paws & Tails website as “extremely passionate about animals since birth, dogs being her favorite! She would bring strays home when she was a kid, but because she grew up in an apartment, her mom always sent them on their way. She would cry over the dog for weeks.”
She is also, the website notes, “the kind of a person who would stop traffic to save a momma duck and her ducklings. That’s how she got her first rescue dog.”
Tercero has been involved in animal rescue most of her life and worked with rescue organizations since 2013. She started His Paws & Tails in 2020. She plans, she said, “on helping God’s little creatures for the rest of her life here on earth!”
Anyone interested in adopting a pet or needs a person or family to adopt a pet can contact Christine by calling 408.849.1080.
Interested persons can also go to her website to see more information about how His Paws & Tails works in finding a home for a dog or adopting a dog that needs a home.
As a nonprofit service, His Paws & Tails relies a great deal on charitable donations. Persons can easily make donations on the website.
I found the process of working with Christine simple and efficient. All I had to do was provide proof that the dog had been spayed and had received a current rabies shot. That made sense to me, and I found it easy to respond to those requests.
I’m glad that the foster dog I was caring for now has found a good home, a wonderful couple who loves her, and the dog loves them and is happy.
It’s good to know that a service like “His Paws & Tails” is here in Los Banos and a person like Christine Tercero is making good things happen for dogs in our community, all, as she told me “for His greater glory.”
