Companion Pet Rescue & Transport of Western Tennessee: Senior Pet Adoption Assistance Grant Report

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

We maintain approximately 100 dogs and puppies in our care each month and they stay in foster homes, our facility in Tennessee, or our adoption center in Southbury, CT. While in our care, they receive all appropriate vetting and we adopt about 90 each month.

Our average length of stay is about 35 days, but some dogs stay with us longer because they are more difficult to adopt. One of the factors that can lead to this longer stay is age, and another is difficult medical conditions that need long-term management.

Those longer stays can be difficult, as we are under constant pressure to save as many dogs as possible, but we do not want to turn away dogs from our rescue just because we know that they will be more difficult to adopt. So we work extra hard to really market those slower-to-adopt dogs and let prospective adopters know that they will be wonderful additions to their homes.

We know that most loving pet parents will provide necessary medical care for long-term conditions for their dogs as they age (when they are financially able to), but many people are reluctant to sign up for that for a dog they just met.

The Petfinder Foundation Senior Pet Adoption Assistance grant removes some of the initial financial burden for a new adopter who is choosing to adopt a senior dog who needs a little extra medical care and incentivizes them to take that leap and give a senior a chance.

How many pets did this grant help?

1

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

Betty was difficult to adopt due to her age and medical condition. She is in heart failure as a result of previous heartworm infection and suffers from mild incontinence.

We treated her heartworm infection, but there was significant damage as a result of the years she went without treatment, and her incontinence is a result of nerve damage in her back as well as her age.

Betty was adopted twice and returned due to her medical conditions. She had some inquiries but, in cases when the medications were not an issue, managing her incontinence was a dealbreaker for the prospective adopters.

We used the grant to cover Betty’s adoption fee of $260 (which we had already reduced) and we will use the remaining $740 to reimburse Betty’s new family for her medications and any vet bills she incurs until the money runs out.

We are very happy to say that Betty was adopted on July 31, 2022, and is doing very well in her adoptive home.