Ruff Start Rescue: REDI Implementation Grant Report

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

This grant allowed us to purchase 146 cases of wet kitten food along with 280 martingale collars, leashes, and slip leads. These supplies are absolutely vital to ensuring we have sufficient food for our kittens and nursing mom cats as well as have handling supplies for the nervous and shy dogs who come into our care. The wet food is also used to help socialize cats who may not have had a lot of human interaction prior to coming into rescue.

These items are always in short supply and we find ourselves continually requesting donations from the public to keep our shelves stocked, especially during the busy puppy and kitten season. This grant ensured our foster animals were both safe and had their bellies full, and because we didn't have to continually be soliciting support for these items from our donor community, we were able to put more effort into marketing some of our special-needs animals whose vet expenses exceed $1,000.

How many pets did this grant help?

400

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

Ope’s former foster mom writes: “This gorgeous girl came to me at just under 4 months old, having never before met a human.

“She was terrified, and rightly so! For the first month, the only time I could touch her was if she was eating wet food while I gave her a small amount of pets (and only on the head).

“She took her time warming up, but eventually learned to enjoy affection and human companionship! Wet food is a crucial tool when socializing scared kittens.

“She was recently adopted with her sister, and they are both absolutely thriving in their adoptive home.”