Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA: P.L.A.Y. Pet Beds Grant Report

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

In a high-volume shelter, it’s important to make each homeless animal who enters our care as comfortable as possible. In 2021, our shelter accepted 3,812 homeless animals into our care. On any given day, our kennels are at capacity, meaning that we are housing around 80 dogs daily.

Each of those dogs needs a warm bed to sleep on during their stay with us. Shelters were not built to house dogs for long periods of time, so the kennels can be cold and loud. Being in a strange environment that’s loud must be frightening. The warm beds awarded to our shelter have been a little ounce of comfort in an uncertain time for each animal who has been able to snuggle on one.

Without these beds, our dogs might have to use blankets instead of beds due to our population. Beds are always a huge need at our shelter and we are thankful to have been awarded these beds to improve the quality of life for the dogs while they are in our care.

How many pets did this grant help?

Around 100

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

Ana and Arabel arrived at our shelter at the end of April on a transport from Texas. Our shelter is fortunate enough to have the resources to be able to pull animals from shelters that cannot accommodate all the homeless animals they have.

On the transport Ana and Arabel arrived on, we welcomed 37 dogs, 29 of whom were puppies. With the warm beds provided to the SPCA, the puppies were able to relax on soft beds when they arrived, which made the first impression of our shelter cozy instead of scary.

Ana and Arabel tested out the beds, which we shared on our social media to promote their adoption.