Homeward Animal Shelter: COVID-19 Operation Grant Report

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

We utilized the COVID-19 grant to purchase foster-family supplies for our expanding foster program, including dog kennels, kitten playpens, kitchen scales for weighing newborn kittens, and probiotics.

With the additional supplies, we were able to place more pets into foster families and reduce the number of pets housed at our shelter during the beginning of the pandemic. The supplies will last us for quite a while and will likely be in almost constant use for the foreseeable future.

How many pets did this grant help?

100

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

In April, we were contacted about a few dogs whom a regional rescue was in the process of rescuing from a less-than-ideal situation. The owners of the dogs had been unable to afford spay/neuter surgery for their adult dogs, and soon one pair of dogs had turned into almost two dozen.

The older puppies were being housed in a makeshift outdoor enclosure with a dirt floor (which was pure mud in April) and no insulation of any kind. The puppies had missed out on the key socialization period and everything was difficult for them when they first arrived at our shelter. Being on-leash was stressful. Human touch was uncomfortable. A warm bed was scary to touch. And the multiple baths they needed to get the mud and dirt out of their thick coats were absolutely terrifying.

However, thanks to the supplies that we received from the COVID-19 grant, we were able to place all five of the older puppies we received into foster homes in a short period of time. Once in foster, although still scared, they started to blossom. In May, all five puppies found their forever homes and their adopters report that overall, they are doing really well as they learn to navigate their new lives.