Guardians of Florida Animal Rescue: Emergency Medical Grant Report

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

Our rescue takes on many major medical cases where there is an animal in desperate need and there is no hope of anyone taking on the case. In these cases, we know what we are signing up for and that there will be significant costs to rehabilitate the animals.

This case was a little different. When we rescued Cora, we knew that she had been living her life in a crate on a balcony, but we didn't know the damage that had been done to her legs. What we thought would be a rescue of an adorable animal that we knew we could rehabilitate and find a loving home for turned into approximately $15k in surgeries.

Without the support of organizations like the Petfinder Foundation, a case like this can handcuff us under the burden of medical bills and prevent us from saving more animals until we can get those bills paid off. We are very thankful for this contribution to Cora's medical bills.

How many pets did this grant help?

1

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

Cora lived her life in a crate on a balcony with no human bond or love — just a bang on the crate when she whined or barked.

When we take on a dog coming from a horrible situation like that, we understand that we may have to devote several thousand dollars in medical costs to help her. What we didn’t plan on was her emergency surgery to remove a stone lodged in her urinary tract costing $5.4k before we even began with her severe orthopedic issues. Then we went ahead and paid for the surgery to fix her worst knee — another $3.7k. We have another knee and two hips to deal with and we still haven’t come close to paying off the first two surgeries with a balance still well over $3k.

We are SO THANKFUL that we were awarded a $500 Emergency Medical Grant from the Petfinder Foundation to help with the medical costs we incurred for Cora. The Petfinder Foundation provides wonderful support to smaller, boots-on-the-ground rescues like us and we are so thankful for its support in our mission!