Utah Animal Advocacy Foundation: Cat Chow Building Better Lives Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
To offer reduced (or completely waived) adoption fees for difficult-to-adopt and special-needs cats.
We were able to draw attention to some our or tougher kitties by offering a reduced (or completely waived) adoption fee in some cases. We feel that offering these reduced fees has indeed increased the number of special-needs cats who were adopted over the past three months. These included bonded pairs that we desperately wanted to keep together, senior kitties, and kitties with specific health or behavioral issues.
How many pets did this grant help?
Twelve special-needs cats have been adopted through this grant program so far.
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
Grrrl (first photo) came to the Utah Animal Advocacy Foundation after her previous family moved away and left her behind. She is an older girl at 8 years old and walks a little funny (probably due to a birth defect or old injury). In addition to all her routine vet care, including vaccines, FIV/FeLV testing, and a microchip, we were also able to do x-rays, bloodwork, and a full dental cleaning prior to placing Grrrl for adoption. She was initially overlooked because of her age, but once we reduced her adoption fee, she caught the eye of a young couple who had adopted from us before. We already knew they were a wonderful home, so the application was a cinch! Grrrl is settling in to her new home and doing very well at last report.
Kindra (second photo) was rescued along with her littermates when they were just a couple months old. Sadly, during routine testing, it was discovered that one of the kittens was positive for feline leukemia. Since all the kittens had been exposed, our veterinarian recommended the kittens all be quarantined and retested a month later. That next month, Kindra continued to test negative, so she was spayed and placed for adoption. Because she was no longer a tiny little kitten, and because we didn’t want her to spend any more of her kittenhood in foster care, we decided to reduce her adoption fee to see if we could get her placed as soon as possible. Her new mom saw her in the adoption cages at our veterinary clinic and decided to take her home that same day.
Note: I don’t have a photo, but the little kitten from Kindra’s litter who tested positive for leukemia also found a forever home, and we were able to waive the adoption fee entirely thanks to this grant.
