One Love Animal Rescue Group, Inc.: COVID-19 Operation Grant Report

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

During the Covid-19 uncertainty, several shelters were shutting their doors due to lack of volunteers and personnel. Also, most free transport networks discontinued operations. We wanted to continue to pull dogs from our southern-states shelter partners and transport them to New Jersey, so we used paid transport networks during this time. We paid $150 per dog for six dogs with TWD Transport, and $100 per dog for 29 dogs with Lori Buckley's Misfit Farms Transport services. Since the demand to adopt dogs increased significantly during the quarantine period, we were able to rescue nearly double the number of dogs we have rescued in previous years, many of whom were pulled from the South.

This grant helped offset the cost of transport, which is an expense we normally don't have when bringing dogs up from the southern states. With the $500 grant, five dogs were able to be transported up to New Jersey via paid transport. In total, we paid $3,800 for transport during this period that was not budgeted for.

How many pets did this grant help?

5

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

One of the dogs the grant helped was Mimi, an adorable little 15-lb. rat terrier mix. We were notified by one of our wonderful southern partners that Mimi had been brought in to the Ville Platte Shelter in Lafayette, LA, as a stray. One Love tagged her with the help of some wonderful volunteers from that shelter and she was taken to a local veterinarian, where she was found to be heartworm-positive. One Love arranged her transport her to New Jersey and placed her in a foster home with experience with small breeds and heartworm-positive dogs. When the foster mom got Mimi, we discovered that she also was limping and had had previous surgery to her hip. She is now undergoing heartworm treatment and physical therapy prior to being made available for adoption. Mimi is the sweetest little girl and will make a wonderful pet for some lucky family when she is finished with her treatments and spayed.