Henry County Humane Society-Geneseo: Bar Dog Operation Grant Report

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

We used the money we were awarded through this grant to fully vet 11 dogs that we pulled from an overcrowded shelter in another state. This allowed us to deworm every dog, provide monthly heartworm preventative and flea treatment, spay a momma dog, and give the first round of shots to seven puppies.

This grant allowed us to help pull a larger number of dogs from an overcrowded shelter in Oklahoma. This shelter’s intake has been over 600+ animals a month, with several litters of puppies being surrendered each week. The fate of a lot of these dogs would have been very grim if we were not able to transport them to our shelter to be adopted out. We were able to get these dogs healthy and into their forever homes.

How many pets did this grant help?

11

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

Oaklynn (first photo) was a pregnant pit mix who was surrendered to the shelter in Oklahoma. She was a very special save for us as this was the first time we have ever taken in a pregnant dog. We were introduced to the shelter in Oklahoma where Oaklynn came from by another shelter in our area. We had been partnering with the shelter in Oklahoma for several months when they reached out to us asking if we would be interested in taking a pregnant dog.

We agreed to take her because if they hadn’t been able to find another shelter or rescue for her, she would have been euthanized. So we put out a plea on Facebook to find a foster who would be willing to take Oaklynn and help care for her and her puppies when they were born.

We didn’t have a lot confidence that we would be able to find someone. To our amazement, a single mom who had two kids still at home agreed to foster Oaklynn and her puppies. She said since she was working at home it was the perfect time to foster. She had never fostered before and didn’t have any experience with pregnant dogs.

Because we were very fortunate that a foster stepped up, Oaklynn made the 12+-hour ride up to our shelter in a van full of other dogs. Oaklynn arrived at our shelter on a Friday night at about 11:00 p.m., and we had an appointment scheduled the next day for her to see the vet so that we could get an idea about how many puppies she was expected to have.

Once she arrived at our shelter, she was picked up by her foster and taken home. To our surprise, Oaklynn was at the foster home getting settled in and it wasn’t even 30 minutes after she’d come off the transport that I got a text from Jodi, Oaklynn’s foster, saying Oaklynn had had her first puppy! This poor girl waited the whole ride up here until she was safe in a home to give birth.

Jodi did an amazing job and said Oaklynn was a great mom, which made it much easier on Jodi. In the end, Oaklynn gave birth to seven puppies who were all pretty different from each other.

We were so very thankful that we were able to find a foster so we could save the lives of these eight amazing dogs. Jodi did an amazing job. She made sure that the puppies received lots of attention and were well-socialized. She even did such an amazing job posting about her experience on Facebook that she had potential adopters reach out to us before the puppies were even ready to be adopted. Five of them ended up having homes lined up a couple of weeks before they were even ready to go home.

Jodi even had birth certificates made up and had baby pictures of each puppy printed for each adopter! I was her foster mentor, which means that at any time she could reach out to me with questions or for help, support, or whatever she needed. This is something we provide all of our fosters with.

Our shelter is working hard to grow and expand in different ways so that we can help as many animals as possible. It is because of pets like Oaklynn and her puppies that we know we want to strive to do more and that it really takes a whole lot of teamwork to make it possible.

The grant money made it possible for us to not hesitate to take on the expense of a momma dog with a litter of puppies. Each and every one of the puppies and the mom all found amazing homes:

• Oaklynn was adopted by a friend of Jodi’s and is loving life with her new dad and his other dog.
• Milo was adopted by Jodi. He has a four-legged brother along with Jodi’s kids (Milo is on the right in the second photo).
• Lola (third photo) was adopted by a great family. She is actually the first dog they have owned and she gets to go to all the kids’ sports games.
• Sunny (fourth photo) went to a lady that I used to work with. She and her husband had been looking for a puppy for several months but either were too late in applying or just couldn’t find what they wanted.
• Gus was adopted by Jodi’s neighbors. He lives with another dog and two kids.
• Remy was the runt and was adopted by the parents of a couple who are Jodi’s neighbors. They wanted to take him home immediately when they saw him and could hardly wait the two weeks until he was ready. He is living with a couple of feline friends, also.
• Meek was adopted by the brother of Jodi’s boyfriend, so he gets to see his brother Milo all the time.
• Tito was the only one who went to a family that no one knew previously. But he has two school-age kids to play with and his family adores him.