Humane Society of Truckee Tahoe: Play Group Training Grant Report

How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?

The money was used entirely for the cost of the Dogs Playing for Life mentorship program at Austin Pets Alive!

This grant has helped us get more dogs out to play together, which has been amazing for potential adopters to see. We live in a very dog-friendly community, where a lot of dogs are off-leash, so knowing how a dog does in a playgroup is pretty crucial for adopters.

How many pets did this grant help?

At the very least, 100 dogs. Any dog who has gotten to attend playgroup has benefited from this grant!

Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.

We had a dog named Raymond who seemed to be dog-aggressive. When we did the on-leash introduction, he was lunging and acting threatening. He would fence-fight with the dogs next to him and even try and go after his own reflection, which resulted in a redirection bite on his handler. After going through the Dogs Playing for Life mentorship, we thought we should try Raymond with a muzzle in a small playgroup. At first he was uncomfortable, but with everything I had learned, we continued this until Raymond was comfortable and eventually started to play! He was adopted into a home shortly thereafter that has another dog and they are living happily ever after. Without the confidence and the skills we learned from Dogs Playing for Life, Raymond could still be sitting in a shelter.