central arizona animal rescue: Kia Pet Adoption Grant Report

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

We had the best adoption numbers for the year 2023! The rate matches the number we were adopting at the peak of COVID, when every dog was getting adopted no matter how unadoptable they might have been considered. The rate was 50% better than our best month so far in 2023. We even had one of our puppies get adopted and transported all the way to Portland, Ore., which is one of the farthest adoptions ever to take place with us.

How many pets did this grant help?

This grant was directly used towards 18 adoptions, and the publicity also assisted in getting several more dogs adopted that we did not directly track.

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

The grant assisted in the adoption of Sam, a puppy who was born to a mother we had pulled out of Pinal County Animal Control.

She had been seized in hoarding case and, unknown to us at the time, she was pregnant. She had eight puppies a couple of weeks after arriving.

Seven of the puppies were normal, but Sam had a deformation of his front right leg that we were afraid was going to make it so he would need to have it amputated.

We had to separate him from his littermates to give him extra care, but that also meant that he got a lot more attention, so he was very social and eager to be around people.

That then helped him get extra attention when it came to finding him a home, and he caught the eye of a lady in Portland, Ore. She had recently lost one of her older dogs and was looking for a puppy.

She was able to arrange for Sam to be transported to Portland by a friend of hers who happened to be in Arizona at the time. Sam ultimately outgrew the deformation of his front leg so that it is now nearly normal, and he is living a happy, healthy, spoiled life in Oregon with his new family.