Animal Welfare Friends: Dog Enrichment Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
This grant has helped us in a variety of ways; first and most important, our dogs are enriched beyond levels we can explain! From ensuring our fencing is staked in properly, to providing equipment to play and romp on, to filling in holes at least three feet deep to avoid injury. This grant has helped us ensure our dogs are stimulated, fulfilled, and content -- both mentally AND physically -- as they await their very own families. In doing so, it has helped their adoptability by improving their demeanors in terms of energy, anxiety, and lovingness.
How many pets did this grant help?
500
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
This grant has directly impacted many dogs already; however, the first to come to mind is Freddy.
At first glance, he’s your classic red Labrador, but upon meeting him, we quickly found out that he had inherited the almost folkloric “red Lab” genes of being extremely high-energy and wound-up, yet SO lovable.
Freddy had to stay in our isolation area for about a week and a half awaiting all of his routine procedures, vet care, etc. That week and a half must’ve been the longest of his — and ALL of our — lives.
When he’d be let outside during this isolation period, he would run and jump up to you so that you’d be face-to-face, ensuring you’d tumble over. He ripped apart every single toy he was given, even HEAVY CHEWER KONGS! As you’d imagine, he was a bundle of energy and anxiety.
The moment he was able to make the switch to playing in the big yard with other dogs, it was as if a switch went off in his brain. He’s now calmer, gentle, somehow even MORE loving, and he does not jump nearly as much onto humans but typically strictly onto our equipment!
The direct effect that our yard had on Freddy is almost hard to conjure into an answer. It was almost something you had to be there to witness. While Freddy has not yet been adopted, we know that with his charm and his being on his best behavior, his time is coming! The impact this grant will make to countless similar dogs is unimaginable.
