Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society: Grant Report

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

Sponsoring adoption fees for adult and senior cats.

Because of the New Year, New Home grant, we were able to place 27 adult and senior cats into loving homes in the month of April. By being able to fully subsidize our adult and senior cats' adoption fees, we sent nearly 60% more adult and senior cats home versus the same time last year. With kitten season in full swing, this provided much-needed space to accommodate cats who need to find loving homes.

Berkeley Humane’s model focused on where we can have the most impact: medically needy animals who are most often at highest risk for euthanasia. These are the hardest-luck animals who, without us, might not have a chance. In fact, most of the animals we rescued last year needed and received extensive medical care before adoption. The New Year, New Home Pet Adoption Grant enabled us to find homes for needy animals who likely would have been passed over in a traditional setting.

How many pets did this grant help?

27

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

Norma (first photo) is a sweet older girl who came into our care in the middle of February. She is a very gorgeous girl, with long diluted calico fur and big sparkly eyes — definitely a face that caught people’s eyes! We were excited to transfer her in and knew she had high potential to find a home early on. Yet as can be the case with older animals, her outwardly healthy appearance did not accurately depict what was actually going on inside. Norma needed a little extra attention: We had to address her oddly positioned liver. So she received an ultrasound, which showed her slightly herniated liver, and her heart, which had been pushed over to make room — an occurrence that sounds scary, but thankfully nothing we needed to address with an invasive procedure. We also did a dental on her that resulted in several teeth extractions and treated her for infected nail beds. It took a little bit to get her in tip-top shape, but once we did, she was ready to meet her person!

We learned quickly that Norma was not an extrovert and preferred to not be the center of attention. During her first few weeks, she kept to her cubby space or curled up tight on her bed, getting upset when too many hands were on her. So we decided to secure her cage and put up a friendly sign asking for interested adopters to come find a staff member for introductions. This made Norma so much happier! The less she felt like she was on display, the more she was open to meeting people. In the end, an older woman who had previously had a cat much like Norma took her home. She handled Norma beautifully and understood to admire her from afar until Norma came to her, which Norma did very quickly. Norma is now living in San Francisco, enjoying the views of the city from up high.

When we have two bonded cats, it is our mission to get them adopted together. With Chipmunk and Possum (second photo), we had the challenge of them being bonded cats, black cats and shy cats. We gave them a two-tiered condo with plenty of space to go wherever they felt the safest. For the first few days, they remained wedged together in one cubby space. Open to light petting, they began to enjoy brief moments of affection from the staff, a really hopeful sign! They were still fairly shy by adoption day, but had come far enough that we did not want them to miss out on any opportunities to find the perfect home. That Friday, they were visited by a few people, every now and then when they would come out to get a drink of water or glance through the window to see what all of us were doing up front. Every little moment of engagement with us was positive progression, so we were very hopeful! We may have been hopeful, but we weren’t expecting what came next. Chipmunk and Possum found a home the very next day! A wonderful couple who had lost their bonded pair last year had been on the search for the right duo and they found it in these two. We always love when the “undercat” wins!