Underdog Animal Rescue & Rehab: Kia Pet Adoption Grant Report

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

The Petfinder Foundation’s Kia Pet Adoption Grant had a transformative impact on Underdog Animal Rescue & Rehab. By enabling us to waive adoption fees for our longer-stay residents (those in our care for over 90 days), this grant significantly increased their chances of finding loving forever homes. These fee-waived adoptions removed financial barriers for adopters, allowing them to focus on providing the care and love these pets deserve.

As a result, we successfully placed numerous long-term residents into caring homes, opening up critical space at our Rescue Ranch. This additional capacity allowed us to rescue and rehabilitate more animals from the Navajo Nation, where the need for intervention is immense due to the overpopulation of stray animals.

This grant not only gave these overlooked dogs a fresh start but also enabled us to continue our mission of saving lives and finding homes for more Underdogs. The ripple effect of this funding continues to touch countless lives, both human and animal, and for that, we are profoundly grateful.

How many pets did this grant help?

51

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

This grant helped Lili, and 2.5-year-old “rez dog” we rescued during our free/low-cost monthly veterinary clinics on the Navajo Nation. Lili was overlooked by adopters for five months because she’s older than a lot of adopters want, as many people are looking for a puppy.

Waiving Lili’s adoption fee meant meeting her future family! We posted all of our adoption-fee-waived pups on our social media accounts to promote this special grant and showcase our dogs, and Lili was seen by a lovely couple who decided they would foster her first and then decide if they wanted to make that commitment if it worked out.

They quickly fell in love with Lili, who now has a forever family of her own!