High Plateau Humane Society: Capital Improvement Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
Our grant was used to help purchase a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system for our cat care and adoption facility. The system included an Active Pure air-purification system capable of killing airborne bacteria, fungal spores, and viruses.
Not only is this system providing properly air-conditioned and heated air for all our charges, it is also cleaning the air of pathogens and has allowed us to completely separate the air-handling systems between our adoption and quarantine rooms. We anticipate that this will allow us to keep our adoptable cats healthy so they can be adopted out sooner, as well as reduce our veterinary bills for recurring cases.
How many pets did this grant help?
We estimate this sytem will help us save 500 cats per year over the life of the system.
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
Tucker is the perfect example of the type of cat we can now better care for. Tucker (shown at intake in the first photo) and five of his siblings came to us late last year. All had serious upper-respiratory problems, including runny noses and eyes. They were also lethargic, not interested in eating, and had diarrhea.
Most shelters would euthanize these animals on intake for fear they would contaminate other animals, as the upper-respiratory infection these cats had was highly contagious and spread through sneezing and sharing fluids.
Fortunately for Tucker, one of our volunteers who did not have cats at home took all of them home and cared for them in her heated garage. They all recovered and are now in new homes (the second photo shows Tucker in his new home; the third shows his sister Sweet in hers).
Now that we have our new HVAC system and a true quarantine facility, we can take cats like Tucker into our facility and no longer have to depend on that very rare volunteer willing to care for cats with contagious diseases.
