Paws A Tale to Tell

Paxos Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) was founded in 2005 by Lindsay Geddes and Linda Parker after a summer holiday on Paxos. PAWS was set up to give regular veterinary car to Paxos, to introduce education on animal welfare and support the winter feeding of stray cats.

Both Linda and Lindsay invested money to get the charity started, which enabled them to buy basic supplies and fund UK vet teams. For the first three years the teams worked outdoors, under the olive trees or within private gardens, in café courtyards… wherever there was water and electricity. Paws also built numerous feeding stations around the island, looked after by volunteers.

After Linda Parker retired in 2011, PAWS was run by its Director Lindsay Geddes as an unpaid volunteer from her home in Sussex, England and continued pursuing her objective of creating something permanent on Paxos. Finally in 2012 the then Mayor of Paxos, Spyros Bogdanos offered the use of an old kitchen within the old primary school yard in Magazia village as a permanent clinic. Lindsay with the financial help from the Dogs Trust and other sponsors managed to raise enough money to convert the building into a 4 roomed well equipped veterinary clinic. It was with great excitement that the PAWS Municipal veterinary clinic was licensed and inaugurated by the Mayor in September 2013 and the charity launched its first website.

Since then the charity went from strength to strength becoming a registered charity in the UK (1155941) in 2014 and it was run by a team of trustees both in the UK and Paxos.

A Corfu vet, Stathis Konstantopoulos, was the first vet to work at PAWS clinic and then in 2015 young vet Nefeli Damigou joined the team and worked at the clinic for 3 years. She is currently the official municipal vet and works at PAWS clinic one day per week, while she opened her own private clinic.

During the pandemic years the volunteers’ team managed to trap, neuter, train and home about 60 stray adult dogs and puppies, which had formed a pack, living at a remote part of the Island. Four years later Paxos remains dog stray free.

PAWS became a Greek nonprofit organization in 2021 and a registered Greek animal charity in 2026 (5311). Lindsay Geddes retired towards the end of 2025.

PAWS charity currently looks after approximately 700 stray cats in about 45 spots all over Paxos and on Antipaxos. It co-funds neutering of about 500 stray animals annually and treats and medicates about 200 stray animals every year.

PAWS works with the Primary School Center, hosting school children at the clinic, explaining to children basic principles on responsible pet owning, how to take care of pets, how to feed etc, to familiarize people with veterinary care for their animals. PAWS invites registered, experienced dog trainers on Paxos to help educate people on how to behave towards dogs in the street, how to train a dog in order to have a real partner in everyday family life etc. PAWS collaborates with local authorities to organize informative campaigns about the importance of neutering, microchipping etc and has funded the Voucher Project to encourage Paxos residents to neuter their pets (dogs and cats) in order to avoid having unwanted animals and eventually strays on Paxos.

Over its 20 years of existence PAWS has received regular support from:

Dogs Trust UK
Greek Animal Rescue
Greek Cat Welfare Society
Worldwide Veterinary Service (WVS) and Marchig Trust
Jean Sainsbury
France Hayhurst Trust
Municipality of Paxos and the Mayor

PAWS will continue to improve animal welfare on Paxos for as long as possible so please get in touch to support us.