Humane Society of North Iowa: KONG Toys Grant Report

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

We received 30 KONG toys of various sizes to use in our shelter. We have really gotten a lot of use out of them and the dogs love them! We fill them with a combination of donated items: peanut butter, oatmeal, Cheerios and honey. We also use the ice cube trays we received with the KONGs to make "pup-cicles!" The dogs love it!

When we give a dog a KONG toy, they are stimulated for a period of time. This decreases boredom in the kennel and helps them to stay busy.

How many pets did this grant help?

An average of 30 (the number of KONGs we were granted) each time we use them.

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

We have one dog in particular, Goldie, who suffers from what we refer to as a the dog version of ADHD and a little bit of OCD as well. She’s 11 years old and had lived her life prior to entry in our shelter in a kennel behind someone’s garage with little to no human interaction. When she came into our shelter, she was so wild and frantic that volunteers had a hard time walking her. With a combination of medication and the use of a KONG in her kennel each day, Goldie has settled down dramatically and is much easier for volunteers to handle.