Animal Aid of Branch County: COVID-19 Operation Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
This grant money was used to help with veterinary bills for some of the animals we have rescued and adopted out since the Covid crisis began. In truth it is almost impossible to say exactly which animals were helped because using this money to help the animals I will name below produced the ripple effect of allowing us to use other dollars we had for other animals.
Like most rescues, our ability to do fundraisers to raise funds for the veterinary care given to our fosters before adoption was pretty much shut down during the early stages of the Covid crisis. This grant helped us to stretch our existing dollars and efforts even further in caring for pets in need. In particular, it helped with the influx of cats and kittens that began a month or so after the start of Covid and the early restrictions imposed in Michigan on non-emergency veterinary services such as spays and neuters.
How many pets did this grant help?
I will specifically mention four kittens and a senior dog assisted by the grant.
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
At the beginning of June, we took in 16 kittens from a severe overcrowding case. All of them had severe eye infections and at the beginning it was unclear whether the eyes could be saved. Four were fostered by Kathy Neitzert of Animal Aid of Branch County and, after a couple of weeks of treatment, they had vastly improved. No one required eye removal. Normal veterinary costs for them would have been $781.25, but our discount allowed us to care for them for $546.88. Of these 16 kittens, Jello (first photo), Jypsy and Jade (second photo), and Jam have been adopted into great homes. Jambalaya (third photo) is still available. Meet Jambalaya here.
Another special case was a dog, Mr. Chips (fourth photo), who came to us in early May. His story began with a neglect case in Ohio. He was a handsome, wonderful older Scottie who had a lot of hair loss and skin infection going on, probably from flea allergies. He also had ear infections. His vetting was $527, but again, with our discount, we were able to get him healthy at a cost of about $368.90 and he was adopted into a wonderful family.
