Arizona Small Dog Rescue: Senior Pet Adoption Assistance Grant Report

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

The grant money helped Belle get adopted! It covered her adoption fee and Vetmedin medications for several months. The remainder is saved to pay for her echocardiogram, which is due in March. Belle has a heart condition and she is elderly, which made her hard to adopt due to her vet bills. This grant ensures that Belle will have the medication and care she needs for at least one year.

This grant helped a senior Chihuahua get adopted, and paid for her medical care for a year.

How many pets did this grant help?

1

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

Belle was with us for eight months and was not getting adopted due to her age and medical needs. Finding an adopter to pay an adoption fee for a senior medical dog is very hard. Here is Belle’s story:

Belle, a 10-year-old tan female Chihuahua, arrived at AZ Small Dog Rescue early March 2021 in ill health. Her owner was moving into a nursing home and could no longer care for her. We discovered that Belle desperately needed her teeth cleaned; she was overweight, had a grade 4-6 heart murmur, and had many fatty lipomas on her body.

Once Belle was at the vet’s office for her dental, we learned that all her teeth were so diseased that they needed to be pulled, so now Belle has no teeth. She will need to be on lifelong medication and get an annual echocardiogram to continue monitoring her heart.

It does not slow her down one bit, though: She loves to go for walks, bark out the window at cats, and nap quietly in her foster mom’s office while she works. While Belle occasionally likes to lie in bed with her people, she prefers to dig deep into a fluffy blanket on her dog bed and sleep soundly. She will even tuck herself under the blankets sometimes!

Belle stayed with a foster for eight months and lost weight, gained energy, had proper medication and vet care, and thrived. And then came the call from someone who wanted to adopt Belle.

We did not tell the adopter about the grant money until Belle was adopted. Now Belle is thriving in her adoptive home continuing to get the medical care she needs to live a long and healthy life! This is a complete success story!