Freedom Farm Animal Sanctuary: Emergency Medical Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
We used the money for Felicia, a rescued cat with a large open sore on her stomach.
The money helps us keep rescuing. Felicia's medical bill was just under $1,000 and, for a small rescue, that was a lot.
How many pets did this grant help?
The money replaced the money we paid for Felicia, which in turned helped us rescue 10 more animals in need.
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
Our dog coordinator received a call from a family that had previously adopted from FFAS. The neighbor’s kids had found a cat and brought her home. Their mom wouldn’t let them have her, so she was put back outside. The family that called us was concerned because the cat was obviously in poor health. FFAS immediately agreed to take her and our coordinators met with the mom to pick Felicia up. When we got there, she had Felicia in an open plastic tote. Even though we’re sure Felicia was probably scared, she never tried to escape.
We could tell from looking at her that she had an upper respiratory infection, and she was terribly thin. When we picked her up, we also discovered she had an open wound on her stomach. It was the size of a golf ball and, though we couldn’t tell what it was, we knew it had to be painful. We took her to the vet the next day. It was determined that she is 8 years old and she was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection, ear mites and what our vet thought was an old abscess that had ruptured. On the bright side, Felicia tested negative on her FELV/FIV/heartworm tests and she was already spayed.
The vet started her on several medications and some ointments that were put on her wound three times a day. Before long, Felicia started feeling better and was putting on weight. The wound started healing, but then stopped after a few weeks. We discussed different options with our vet, but the safest was to go ahead and remove it for testing. The vet wanted to make sure it wasn’t cancer. Luckily the test came back cancer-free, but there were still bacteria in the wound. Felicia was put on a stronger antibiotic. She is now completely healed and ready for her forever home.
We would like to give a heartfelt thank you to the Petfinder Foundation. Felicia’s medical care cost FFAS just under $900, and the Petfinder Foundation awarded us a grant to cover her medical care so we can continue rescuing! We are so fortunate to receive this grant, along with everything Petfinder does to help FFAS find loving homes for our animals.
