Circle L Rescue: Kia Pet Adoption Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
Through the 2022 Kia Pet Adoption Grant from the Petfinder Foundation, we were able to place eight of the 10 sponsored dogs into forever homes! Our rescue team chose to apply the adoption sponsorship to our longest-term residents and harder-to-place dogs. We paired this grant with our annual Operation Santa Paws program, which was able to spay or neuter, vaccinate, microchip, and provide goodies to 10 dogs in need this past holiday season.
The holiday season in our area historically brings reduced adoptions combined with greater numbers of unwanted animals in need. This grant specifically helped us continue to place babies into their forever homes through this difficult time period, thereby opening spaces to provide for other unwanted dogs.
Two dogs remain available for fully-sponsored adoptions under the grant, as we have not yet found their forever homes. They both have behavioral issues, which makes finding permanent placement quite difficult.
Two community members were inspired by this grant and donated so that two of our horses would have fully-sponsored adoption fees as well!
The 2022 Kia Pet Adoption Grant in effect served double duty: Eight dogs found their forever homes, and eight unwanted dogs were saved by the open rescue space.
How many pets did this grant help?
Eight in 2022. Kennedy and Poncho are still available for sponsored adoption under the grant, so two dogs will be served by these grant funds in 2023.
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
In early 2022, a German shepherd family of three — adults Simba (first three photos) and Nala (photos 4-6) and puppy Kiara (seventh photo) — found themselves trapped outside in an unkempt backyard riddled with debris and overgrown vegetation.
During this timeframe, their area experienced extreme temperatures, ice accumulation, and heavy snowfall. Local Animal Control worked to get help for these three dogs, to no avail. Nearly six months later, Animal Control was able to seize the dogs from the backyard and they were declared abandoned.
However, the damage was already done. All three dogs had lost the tips of their ears from frostbite. Simba was perhaps the worst, as he also lost hearing as a result of the hypothermia. When arriving at the dog pound, Simba was also so anemic and emaciated that he needed to receive multiple blood transfusions.
Despite their previous owners having been notified that the dogs were in the pound, they never came. It didn’t take long before the three dogs found themselves at risk of dying again, this time by making it onto the pound’s euthanasia schedule.
When the Circle L Rescue team learned of the fate facing this sweet family of three, we knew we had to help. Simba, Nala, and Kiara came to the rescue in August 2022.
After extensive rehabilitation with their amazing foster, it became clear we would need three different homes. Sometimes trauma-bonds can be detrimental to dogs overcoming their pasts, and with these pups we felt they needed to be placed independently of each other to have the best future. We knew these dogs would be even more difficult to place due to the physical damage to their ears and their quirky personalities stemming from their past.
Thanks to the 2022 Kia Pet Adoption Grant, Simba was the first of the family to be adopted, on Christmas Eve 2022! Kiara was adopted one week later, on New Year’s Eve 2022! Nala was the last to be adopted, on Jan. 21, 2023.
While each home is considerably different than the others, these three have all found wonderful, loving forever homes.
We have included adoption pictures of Nala and Simba, as well as Toots and Bandit (two other dogs sponsored by the grant).
