Our Story
Big Paws was founded by a Shannon and Daniel Eldridge, dog lovers who saw a need in our Northwest Arkansas community. Their love and passion for dogs was sparked by their dog, Bubba.
Since our start in 2016, our little rescue for big dogs has continued to grow. From our founding up until 2022, we have helped rescue, rehome, and rehabilitate over 620 dogs in our area and had the pleasure of working with over 90 different foster homes. It is our joy and honor to help these dogs find their forever families. Every dog that comes through our rescue is forever a part of our pack and we are so proud to be a part of their story.
In 2022, because of continued growth and demand for our services, we moved into a brick and mortar facility in the middle of Fayetteville where we have 4 large dog runs, a grooming station, and ample space to host meet and greets for the dogs in our rescue.
Now, in 2023 we launched our Big Paws Academy and began offering high quality dog training services to our Northwest Arkansas community. We hired our new director of training, Matt Newton, and the expansion of our training packages available to the public.
We want to help create a community in which all dogs and their owners have access to dog training and the required help to ensure dog's are in loving, experienced homes. We know that well trained dogs (and well trainer owners) have more positive outcomes and strengthen our animal welfare community as a whole. Rehabilitation has always been an important part of our mission, and we are thrilled to be able to see this dream of ours come true.
Our Pack
Compassion. Dedication. Expertise.
We are thrilled to have had the opportunity to expand our team over the past couple of years. We went from being entirely volunteer based to now having a paid team which has drastically increased the impact of our rescue and doubled the amount of dogs we're able to save every year. Meet the pack that keeps our little rescue afloat!
