Heber Valley Animal Services: KONG Toys Grant Report

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

This grant helped us give the dogs in our care an enrichment option that helped provide mental stimulation. The shelter is often a very stressful place that can lead many dogs to remain in a constant state of high arousal due to not having some kind of release. We were able to use the KONG products from the grant to help bring a couple of our dogs out of a high-arousal state and calm them down a little bit. The toys provided them with a release and kind of distraction from everything else going on around them (barking dogs, people walking through, construction sounds from next door, etc).

How many pets did this grant help?

250

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

Buddy was helped by this grant probably more than any other dog we had at the time. He was a very young husky/corgi mix with a lot of anxiety and energy!

Buddy came to our shelter as a stray. One of our officers actually had to set a humane trap to safely catch Buddy and bring him in. As one can imagine, he was NOT a happy pup once trapped! He was not a big fan of anyone and would growl and bark when approached.

It took us about a week to gain his trust and be able to safely take him out of his kennel. Even after we worked with him for a couple of weeks, he was still displaying off-putting behaviors while in his kennel when approached by new people.

Once we received the products from the KONG Toy Grant, we started giving him frozen KONGs with peanut butter. Having something to do helped him calm down immensely! He was still very vocal when people approached his kennel, but started allowing people to actually MEET him!

Giving him the KONGs gave him enough of a mental release that we were able to start pulling him out of his kennel to meet potential adopters without the threat of him redirecting his energy or kennel frustration in a negative way.

After being at our shelter for a month and a half, Buddy was adopted! He is now living his best life with his amazing family!