Kohala Animal Relocation and Education Service (KARES): All-Star Dog Rescue Celebration Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
Funds were used for the medical care for 11 dogs, including antibiotics, treatments for mange and external and internal parasites, vaccinations and spay or neuter of each of the dogs before making them available be adopted. Maggie Grace also had a rabies shot and examination for a medical health certificate before being sent to her new home in Canada.
KARES's mission represents a commitment to canine welfare by conducting programs for foster care and adoption to provide for homeless dogs and spay and neuter to prevent the birth of unwanted/unplanned litters that subsequently may become the abandoned and abused, the next generation of homeless dogs. The Petfinder Foundation grant of $1,000 has helped to pay for emergency medical expenses of rescued dogs and for their spay/neuter surgeries before making them available for adoption.
How many pets did this grant help?
The grant assisted with medical expenses for 11 dogs: Maggie Grace the rescue and 10 puppies found abandoned in the Ocean View area of the island.
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
We would like to present one story about Maggie Grace that represents the spectrum of KARES’s programs for canine rescue and rehabilitation, spay/neuter and preparation for adoption into a forever home. After sunset one day in early November, a tourist from Alberta, Canada, was viewing the sights from a lookout point high above the ocean north of the Kona airport. Far down the gulch she spotted a curled-up animal and thought it might be a dog; it wasn’t moving. She called the police and the humane society but to no avail, and finally got the number for KARES, which has 24/7 phone number. Debbie Cravatta (with her broken arm in a cast) and another volunteer from KARES arrived in the absolute darkness and climbed down the hillside to retrieve the little dog; it appeared near death and its body was covered with open lesions.
Maggie, as she was later named, weighed only 7 lbs., smelled horribly and had lost clumps of hair due to malnutrition. She could barely raise her head from her resting place to eat food. After medical attention and loving care over many weeks in foster care with a KARES volunteer, Maggie gained strength, her fur began to regrow and she was motivated to play with other dogs. The tourist called every few days from her home in Canada to check on Maggie’s condition and said that she just had to make a home for this special creature. After a complete vet check-up and spay (medical expenses and spay under the auspices of the anticipated Petfinder Foundation grant), Maggie was shipped to Alberta, where she had her first Christmas — and doggy coat! — in a loving home.
She now weighs about 25 lbs. Maggie had presumably been discarded into the gulch by some uncaring soul, but fortunately, her story has a most happy ending.
Photo 1: Maggie Grace at time of rescue
Photo 2: Maggie a few weeks after rescue
Photo 3: Maggie in her new forever home in Canada
