This is the Dog!: KONG Toys Grant Report

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

We were very excited to receive the KONG toy grant this summer! Pets in our care are kept in foster homes until they are well enough to go home with their forever families. This summer, our organization was notified of a mom dog with close to 10 puppies living under a storage unit at a local elementary school. For dogs that we encounter on a daily basis, much like this family, the Kong toys are invaluable in incorporating them successfully into foster homes and weaning puppies from their mother.

We have always utilized Kong toys to help dogs in our care during kennel training to prevent boredom and separation anxiety. Our rescue is based in a rural part of southeast Florida, near the Everglades, and a lot of animals who come into our rescue are injured or suffer from tick-borne diseases and need extensive surgery and treatment. The Kong toys are indispensable during their recovery time.

How many pets did this grant help?

To date, more than 20 pets have benefited from the Kong toy grant and we are so grateful!

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

For the family living under a storage unit we mentioned above, we were able to quickly get all 10 puppies to safety, but the mother would not come near us. We named her Rainbow. She was very distrustful of humans and we set a humane trap to bring her to safety. It took several days to trap her, but once we did we were able to reunite her with her family. After a few days, we discovered that not only was Rainbow extremely emaciated, she also suffered from pyometra [a uterine infection] and mastitis in several teats and she had to undergo multiple surgeries to save her life. The Kong toys were helpful to alleviate her boredom while she was recovering from her surgery.

Because she was not able to nurse any longer, her puppies were able to use the Kong toys in their foster home while weaning. We are still working daily on helping mom Rainbow get better physically and socially. She has a long road ahead of her, but we are determined to make every new day better than the one before it. Like Rainbow, her puppies were very ill, and several required blood transfusions. They are now thriving, and little Xena (first photo) is the spunkiest of the bunch. As you can tell, she LOVES her Kong toy and we can’t wait to see the lucky family that ends up adopting her! Her Petfinder profile can be viewed here: www.petfinder.com/petdetail/36236897