Grand County Pet Pals: Grant Report

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

The grant funds were used to provide 50% reduced adoption fees for cats and dogs in the shelter. We believe that adopters should have the means to care for the cat or dog they are adopting, which is why we chose to discount the adoption fee instead of offering free adoptions.

Our community is a small, rural community full of hardworking people. The reduced adoption fees enabled some families and individuals to adopt the dog or cat they had been waiting for. Being able to offer the reduced adoption fee was the incentive some adopters needed to get more of our resident dogs and cats out of the shelter and into their loving forever homes. See the story of Smokey/Chance below as one great example.

How many pets did this grant help?

5

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

Smokey/Chance (first photo): A 54-year-old woman wanted a hiking and patio-sitting companion to help her exercise more and meet new people. She visited the shelter and met Smokey (now renamed Chance), who had been in and out of the shelter many times due to the fact that he was not good at coming back if let off the leash. Since having a dog who was reliable off-leash was not necessary for her, she was very interested in Smokey. This interest, plus the reduced adoption fee, enabled Smokey/Chance to be adopted for good.

Darla, his adopter, says, “Many thanks to Grand County Pet Pals and their funding sources for taking a chance on him and providing Smokey with a great temporary home for as long as it took until he could find his forever home where he would be well-loved and spoiled.”

Teddy Bear (second photo) came to the shelter with his brother and their feral mother when they were around 6 weeks old. It took both the little ones a while to start trusting humans because they had never been around them. After they were both fixed, they went to new homes quickly due to our being able to offer 50% reduced adoption fees. Teddy Bear is enjoying his new life.