Grey Bruce Animal Shelter: COVID-19 Operation Grant Report

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

The money was used to pay for food, usually specialized food that doesn't normally come in as part of donations (e.g. gastro food for dogs), and paying for vet bills.

The grant helped us cover additional costs incurred during the COVID shutdowns. During the shutdowns, it was hard to get appointments with veterinarians and we didn't want to hold animals unnecessarily, so we ended up sending them out to their new homes and having spay/neuters done afterwards, often for a slightly higher cost. We decided that the trade-off was worth it. We would get the pet into a home as soon as possible so we could take in other animals while keeping both the overall number of animals in our care and the number of volunteers and staff necessary to look after them low.

How many pets did this grant help?

During the time between receipt of the grant to the writing of this report, we've had 18 adoptions and 24 surrenders of cats and kittens (three litters), and seven adoptions and eight surrenders of dogs. All would have been helped by the grant.

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

The money was primarily used to cover vet and food costs for Tank (first photo) and Blaze (second photo). These two dogs were surrendered to our shelter together and were very attached to each other. They needed to be neutered, vaccinated and treated for parasites when they came, but they were very happy, friendly dogs and otherwise healthy.

Even though there was a lot of interest in each of the boys individually, we decided to hold the dogs for a while in hopes of adopting them out together. This decision was made easier knowing we had some funding to back it up if it took a while to accomplish our goal.

Petfinder and its broad reach were instrumental in the happy outcome. Tank and Blaze were adopted together!