Animal Welfare Friends: KONG Toys Grant Report

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

The KONG toys have helped enrich the lives of MANY dogs in our care already! They provide the dogs with the mental stimulation that is so entirely necessary in such a stressful environment. Providing enrichment to any animal, especially in a rescue, helps them be more adoptable and resistant to anxiety and stress-related issues rather than deteriorating mentally, physically, and emotionally.

How many pets did this grant help?

1,000

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

This grant has helped a large number of animals already, but one that truly sticks out is Potato. He is about 1.5 years old, and bonds incredibly quickly with people; he also has strong separation anxiety from ANYONE he bonds with.

This made it especially difficult with casual meet-and-greets. We had to keep him calm and relaxed and prevent him from physically and emotionally breaking down after he was not taken home.

To keep him calm and collected, we first offered bones, in which he had no interest, then it came upon me to offer him a small Kong with some of Kong’s easy-fill peanut butter. That was a game-changer for this sweet little guy, giving him something to redirect that distressed energy into and making it such a positive thing for him!

It made things easy for us as well, since filling the Kong back up wasn’t a chore like with a jar of peanut butter — and running a rescue on a time crunch is the only way these days.

This not only helped him, but it helped US keep the added pressure, stress, and extreme guilt off our shoulders, since we had finally found that what worked best for him, also worked best for us!

Potato’s stay with us came to an end when he was adopted into an AMAZING and very understanding family! Thank you, Kong and the Petfinder Foundation, for finding him his forever home!