Black Dog Animal Rescue, Inc.: Shelter+ Challenge Grant Report

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

We used the money to subsidize adoption fees for animals adopted over the holiday season.

Because we were able to reduce adoption fees for pets during the holiday season, we believe more of them were adopted as a result of the discounted fees.

How many pets did this grant help?

57

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

Ellie was a young female pit bull mix who was rescued from an open-admission shelter in the late summer of 2013. It was immediately apparent once she came into foster care that Ellie was suffering from urinary incontinence at a young age. She was unresponsive to medication for it, and spaying her did not seem to help matters. Further testing revealed Ellie had a malformed bladder and would never be able to hold her urine like a normal dog. We speculated whether this was the reason she was given up by her former owners in the first place.

It’s not easy to find an adoptive home for a dog like Ellie. Even when potential adopters were willing to consider her despite her breed, the incontinence was a deal-breaker. She spent many months in foster care, cheerfully sporting a very cute pink diaper.

Then, one sunshiny day in late November, Ellie finally met her match. A young woman was so smitten by Ellie’s shining personality, her wagging tail, and her easygoing nature that she was willing to manage her incontinence, viewing it as a minor inconvenience in the life of this dog she so badly wanted to adopt.

Because of support from the Petfinder Foundation, Ellie’s adoption fee was already reduced too at the time of this adoption, allowing her new mom to splurge a little more on treats and toys, and of course a few extra diapers for her. Ellie is now living large and happy in her forever home, and we are thrilled to have been a part of this special adoption.