Five Acres Animal Shelter: Orvis Dog Enrichment Grant Report

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

Grant funding received from the Petfinder Foundation and Orvis were used to purchase microchips to be implanted into our adoptable dogs.

This grant provided funding for Five Acres Animal Shelter to purchase 100 microchips to implant in 100 of our adoptable dogs. All of our animals are microchipped before they are adopted. Our hope is that if an animal were to get away from their new family, he or she will be less likely to end up back in a shelter due to the family's not being able to track the pet down. If one of our alumni is found and his or her chip is scanned, it will be registered back to us or the new family, leading to a successful reunion.

How many pets did this grant help?

100

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

Lucky (first photo) is a beagle who was adopted from us recently. He got away from his owners and was picked up by a local animal-control facility. They scanned him for a microchip, which was registered to Five Acres Animal Shelter. After we picked him up and brought him back to our facility, we were able to contact his family and reunite him with them. Because Lucky had a registered microchip, we were able to help prevent him from entering a shelter once again as a homeless pet.

Juna was adopted in April 2016 by a large family with six kids, as you can see in the second photo. All of our animals are microchipped before they are adopted in hopes that they will not end up back in a shelter unclaimed or unidentified. Now, we cannot confirm that Juna has gotten away from her family, but with a family of six children, the possibility of that happening could be greater with kids in and out of a house. If, God forbid, Juna does get away from her family, she is microchipped to either her owners or Five Acres Animal Shelter so that we can successfully reunite them if needed.