Lee County Humane Society: Play Group Training Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
The couple of days that I spent learning at Dogs Playing for Life were not only beneficial to me and my knowledge of shelter dogs, but also allowed decisions -- decisions between DPFL mentors, me, and other shelter employees who were able to attend about the difficulties we face in the shelter, what is causing those difficulties, and what can we do to solve them or manage them better. Of course, those topics mainly revolved around dogs with behavioral issues or how we can better the lives of all the dogs we have there. Our fostering and volunteering programs were brought up and how to expand them and how we can include our more difficult dogs in them safely. New ideas were formed and the amount of knowledge I gained from attending DPFL mentorship cannot be measured, but will surely be passed along to my coworkers so we can fulfill every shelter worker's goal of saving these animals.
How many pets did this grant help?
1,700
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
One dog in particular who benefited from the training learned at the DPFL mentorship was Orlando. Orlando was a high-energy dog who would easily get over-aroused by sounds and sights and even being petted. He would resort to mouthiness and very physical jumping, so much so that he was overwhelming the staff members who were just trying to take him out for the exercise he desperately needed.
We started his training by implementing what I learned at DPFL. He is a very smart dog and caught on quickly, and once he was advanced enough to do this training in his kennel (the place where he was most amped up), it allowed staff members to have the confidence to start taking him out more and without hesitation.
All this added up to a calmer dog in the kennel and a more-adoptable dog to customers. I am glad to report that Orlando, now Ollie, was adopted from LCHS last week and we received an update just yesterday on how great and spoiled he is in his new home.
