Arizona Humane Society: GF Pet Products Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
The donated supplies will be used by the Arizona Humane Society’s Emergency Animal Medical Technicians™ to help care for homeless pets in the field and keep dogs that prefer cold temperatures cool in the hot Arizona climate.
How many pets did this grant help?
202,020
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
In late 2021, Odie, a 4-month-old German shepard/husky mix, was found limping on the streets of Peoria by a good Samaritan who brought him to their local 24/7 BluePearl Pet Hospital.
As a contracted municipality with the Arizona Humane Society (AHS), the hospital contacted our Emergency Animal Medical Technicians™ (EAMTs) since Odie was classified as an injured stray. The next morning, he was picked up by one of AHS’ EAMTs, and his long journey to a forever home officially began.
Upon intake (first photo), Odie’s hind legs and pelvis were x-rayed in our Second Chance Animal Trauma Hospital™ (second photo). The team quickly discovered that he was suffering from a fracture in his left tibia that was causing stiffness, swelling, and lameness.
He was then placed with a foster family to recover outside the shelter. Unfortunately, only three weeks later, Odie began showing signs of distemper at only 5 months old and was readmitted to AHS’ shelter.
For the next three months, Odie was treated and monitored closely for distemper in the shelter. In February, he was finally approved for adoption to a home with no other dogs, as he still wasn’t fully recovered from distemper but no longer needed 24/7 treatment and monitoring.
Within a few days, Odie was adopted, but after only 24 hours, he was returned to the shelter for having “too much energy.” He was quickly adopted again, only to find himself back at the shelter a week later, this time for chasing the family cats and still having “too much energy.” He was soon adopted again and sadly found himself returned after only 10 days for the same reasons.
This time, he was not readopted within a matter of days, and the cooling supplies provided by the Petfinder Foundation were used to keep Otie cool in the scorching summer weather. The entire time, AHS’ Director of Field Operations, Tracey Miller, had followed Odie’s journey and knew she needed to intervene.
Tracey says, “My team knows I am a sucker for shepherds and huskies and sent me his original photo on intake in 2021. When he was returned for the third time, my heart couldn’t take it. I went to his kennel and crawled in with him. He put his head in my lap, and I called my husband right then and there and told him I was bringing a dog home for the weekend for a ‘staycation.’ ”
After three days, Tracey and her husband decided they couldn’t bring Odie, now named Nanook, back to the shelter. He had officially found his forever family.
Shortly after adoption, Tracey did a DNA test on Nanook and found he was a mix of German shepherd, husky, malamute, and samoyed. Further research showed that Nanook has the exact DNA makeup of an Inuit dog, which were made popular by the TV show Game of Thrones as the direwolves.
The Northern Inuit dog is a hybrid breed with a debated background, but most agree that the husky, malamute, and German shepherd dog are part of its ancestry, while other theories include samoyeds and Canadian Eskimo dogs. As such, he much prefers the weather of northern Arizona, if not somewhere even colder. Thanks to the Petfinder Foundation’s donation of cooling supplies, we could keep Nanook comfortable for his last stint in the shelter before finding his forever family.
