The founder of a pony sanctuary and a woman who dedicates hours to finding lost dogs are in the running for a BBC Radio Cornwall Make A Difference Award 2025.
The nominations for the animal category also feature one man and his Pets As Therapy dog and the founder of a shelter for small animals.
The awards, which are in their fourth year, recognise and celebrate people who genuinely make a difference in their communities across Cornwall.
All nominees’ stories are inspiring examples of Cornish community spirit.At the Community and Hospital Education Service (CHES) sites in Cornwall, Tony Nicolson and Beven the labrador are familiar and much-loved faces.
The service teaches children who are too unwell to attend mainstream education.
Tony and Beven are part of the ‘Pets as Therapy’ team, there to help young people who are feeling sad, anxious or upset.
With his big brown eyes, Beven is a picture of calm and affection as students pop in for a stroke, a cuddle or even to read him a story.
“Why do I do it?” said Tony. “Because I’m retired, Beven is such a friendly dog, he loves everybody and everything.
“They’re not with us for very long and I just wanted to share him with everybody else.”
Beven is also a witness support dog at Truro Crown Court.Maria Mulkeen started Marias Animal Shelter 25 years ago.
Today, the hutches and runs at the centre near Probus are full of more than 100 rabbits, guinea pigs and other small animals.
Maria and her small team of volunteers offer advice, a place to bring injured or sick animals and a rescue and rehoming service.
For some it is a “forever home” – the oldest rabbit resident lived here for 17 years.
Maria admitted the shelter had become her life, saying: “I could see all the animals that needed help and there was nothing in Cornwall.
“The longer I’ve done it, the more I know we need to do more education, there are some cases that are so cruel, the things we see here is horrific.
“They’re misunderstood, we’re trying to change that with education and making life better for them.”The Bodmin Moorland Pony Rehabilitation charity was founded in 2014 when Shelley Oldfield was asked to help four semi-feral ponies from Bodmin Moor,
She said they were “close to death” when they arrived.
More than 10 years later, she is still doing it, inspired by her love for the ponies.
She said: “Generally they’re completely wild when they come to us, many have had welfare issues such as malnutrition.
“We get them well, we encourage them to learn trust and we then find them homes where possible.
“They’re incredible, they’re so resilient, they are just the most beautiful souls and we do what little we can do as a small organisation to help them.”For the last decade Maxine Young has been the volunteer co-ordinator of Dog Lost Cornwall, advising distraught people whose dogs have run off what to do next, as well as organising and joining the searches.
She said it was an all-consuming passion – she spends hours running the organisation’s social media pages and often has a bag of chopped liver, binoculars and a slip lead in her bag.
Maxine also uses humane cage traps, remotely-trigged trail cameras and a thermal imagining scope to track down missing pets.
“I saw an article about the woman who set up the Dog Lost website, read her story and decided I wanted to help out,” she said.
“I’ve also got dogs myself so if my dogs went missing I would want to know there was somebody out there to support me, to help me, and just be a back-up if I couldn’t do things.”
The winners of the BBC Radio Cornwall Make A Difference Awards 2025 will be revealed at a ceremony in Falmouth in September.