The 2021 PEDIGREE Foundation grants were given to 108 shelter and rescue organizations across the country, totaling more than $760,000 to help find forever homes for dogs in need. The funds will help nearly 118,000 dogs.
Here’s a look at the grants and recipients.
DOGS RULE.™ Grants Building Best Practices
These are $100,000 grants provided over two years to develop an innovative initiative that can become a best practice for other shelters and rescues. The 2021 grantees were:
- San Diego Humane (San Diego, CA) – First half of $100,000 DOGS RULE.™ grant for 2021 and 2022 to create a Welcome Committee program that helps abbreviate the acclimation period for dogs entering the shelter, build relationships with people, and decrease fear, anxiety, stress and frustration. The focus is incoming dogs who display fear- or stress-based behaviors during their initial 24 hours in care. By helping dogs overcome transitional stress when they enter the shelter, the goal is to reduce stress-related behaviors and help dogs find new homes faster.
- York County SPCA (York, PA) – Second half of $100,000 DOGS RULE.™ grant for 2020 and 2021 to create an interactive, technology-based kennel card program that helps potential adopters get to know dogs, see them outside the kennel environment and learn important information about them quickly. The goal is to give adopters a better way to interact with dogs to increase dog adoption and decrease dogs’ length of stay in shelters.
Program Development Grants Helping Shelters and Rescues Do More
These grants support shelter and rescue activities that expand the operational capacity of the organization to increase dog adoption rates. The focus is on foster, transport and matching/behavior initiatives. This year, 24 shelters and rescues received Program Development grants. Recipients were:
- Animal Protective Association of Missouri (St. Louis, MO) – $15,000 to support its transport program and reduce the number of animals likely to be euthanized at rural partner shelters. The funds will cover care and staffing to continue coordinating transports and capacity-building for APA’s partners.
- Animal Rescue Mission (West Hollywood, CA) –$15,000 to increase the number of dogs rescued and adopted by expanding ARM’s behavioral modification and medical care capacity to find homes for more formerly homeless, abused and neglected dogs.
- Angel’s Retreat (West Chester, PA) – $12,000 to support a transport program that targets an area where on average 31% of animals who enter municipal shelters are euthanized each year. Angel’s Retreat has partnered with shelters, rescues and a transport company to move dogs out of this area and to its rescue to save lives and provide needed medical care.
- Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter Inc. (Baltimore, MD) — $7,500 to assist in providing ongoing in-house medical care for all its shelter animals, including antibiotics, vaccinations, testing, parasite control, and spay and neuter surgery so that they become healthy and are ready to be adopted.
- Chemung County Humane Society & SPCA (Elmira, NY) – $9,600 to support expanding the Chemung County SPCA’s animal transport program by covering the transport crate fees. This will help meet the demand for adoptable dogs in the region and support source partners in their efforts to help bridge the gap between their communities’ imbalance of high animal population and low demand.
- Friends of Pima County (Tucson, AZ) – $15,000 to expand FOP’s ability to provide case management services to reach more medium and large dogs in need of behavior support. Funds will be used to underwrite the training, education development, expert assessment and enrichment items that are key components in overcoming the underlying behavior challenge.
- Friends of Homeless Animals (Aldie, VA) – $15,000 to help difficult-to-adopt dogs with its Diamond Dog Program, a holistic approach that includes early interventions to prevent or lessen issues that can make for difficult adoptions. The program aims to improve the dog/adopter matching process and support adopters through transition after the adoption.
- Hart for Animals Inc. (McHenry, MD) – $11,262 to rescue “COVID-19 drop-offs,” dogs adopted during the pandemic that are now being returned to shelters or abandoned. The funds will support rescuing, sheltering, preparing for adoption and finding permanent homes for abandoned dogs dropped off at HART or relinquished to the county shelter.
- Humane Animal Welfare Society of Waukesha County Inc. (Waukesha, WI) – $15,000 to support continuing transport from HAWS’ transport partners, provide support to the originating shelters, and enable HAWS to accept and treat more senior dogs, heartworm positive dogs and orthopedic cases.
- Humane Society for Seattle/King County (Bellevue, WA) – $15,000 to support its SPOT (Supporting Pet Owners in Transition) temporary foster program for dogs as well as community services to help bring people and pets together and keep them together. The goal is to reduce pet surrender by providing alternatives for pet owners facing economic hardship.
- Kitsap Humane Society (Silverdale, WA) – $15,000 to help more dogs be successfully adopted by ensuring robust foster care opportunities. This will be achieved by increasing foster recruitment, adding foster options for those who are away during the day, enabling adoption directly from fosters and providing behavior training for fosters.
- Lucky Dog Animal Rescue (Arlington, VA) – $15,000 to create a streaming platform for training for increased foster and adopter support and fewer returned animals, as well as communications during disaster relief. Being able to stream events featuring animals in need will facilitate lining up adopters, fosters and other rescues willing to help. Lucky Dog will be able to capture multiple sources of video feed, integrate them into a live program, and livestream them to further its mission and share its needs.
- Muddy Paws Rescue (Long Island City, NY) – $15,000 to continue developing its Pack Portal for foster parents using the Salesforce Experience Cloud platform. This will allow fosters to directly manage their own data, as well as the data for the dogs in their care. Once the portal is complete, new foster applicants will gain access to the portal immediately following their initial application and complete their entire onboarding process as securely authenticated users within the portal.
- Neenah Animal Shelter (Neenah, WI) – $15,000 to increase post-adoption success and reduce return-to-shelter rate by proactively intervening with pre- and post-adoption support to address concerns such as house training, attention-seeking behaviors, leash reactivity, anxiety, resource guarding and others.
- Oklahoma Humane Society (Oklahoma City, OK) – $15,000 to support a relocation program that addresses pet overpopulation, especially in rural communities, by transporting animals to states in need of adoptable pets. The program has a goal of transporting at least 30 dogs per week to a state where they will be easily adopted.
- Pet Tender Angels (Landrum, SC) – $5,200 to increase training and support the larger number of dogs abandoned since the pandemic began, particularly for behavioral or medical reasons. Increasing available training from one to three hours per week will help give more dogs a better chance of being adopted and reduce the average length of stay at the facility.
- Polk County Humane Society (Bolivar, MO) – $14,825 to support the Polk County Puppies Program, which will cultivate five qualified fosters for litters of puppies. PCHS will empower puppy foster homes by providing them with the tools to foster litters until they can be safely adopted. Foster families will be provided with information, supplies, support, vaccinations and spay/neuter surgeries to prepare the litter for adoption. Puppies will be in foster from one to eight weeks.
- Providence Animal Center (Media, PA) – $15,000 to support the TAILS (Transporting Animals Into Loving Situations) program and save dogs that would otherwise be at risk of euthanasia. The TAILS network includes 60 shelter partners across the country. The program provides rescue, veterinary and behavior care, ultimately placing dogs in loving, forever homes.
- Safe Animal Shelter of Orange Park (Middleburg, FL) – $15,000 to further develop its Pups-at-Work (PAWs) program, a behavior modification program in which SAS works with local State correctional facilities. The program aims to modify dogs’ behavior prior to adoption and allows for better matching by observing behavior outside the shelter facility. Additionally, it provides extra space at the shelter to intake more dogs for adoption.
- Souris Valley Humane Society Inc. (Minot, ND) – $15,000 to transport heartworm positive dogs from overcrowded municipal shelters in Oklahoma and from indigenous reservation shelters in North Dakota so they can be cared for and adopted into families. SVAS hopes to save 53 adoptable dogs, allowing them a future in a forever home with a maximum seven-day length of stay in shelter.
- The Animal Foundation (Las Vegas, NV) – $15,000 to support enhanced foster field trips and initiatives for difficult-to-adopt dogs. Expanding on learnings from a 2020 grant, The Animal Foundation will increase dog foster field trips, expand foster recruitment and promote these dogs more widely and more frequently to increase adoptions.
- Vanderburgh County Humane Society Inc. (Evansville, IN) – $15,000 to support a canine transport program, transferring dogs from more crowded, under-resourced shelters. Last year the program almost quadrupled the number of dogs & cats transferred in from other shelters compared to 2019. Vanderburgh County Humane hopes to increase transfers in by 25%.
- Women’s Humane Society for The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Bensalem, PA) – $15,000 to develop, launch and evaluate a pilot project to increase the adoption of dogs that are frequently overlooked due to behavioral “flaws.” The program includes training, providing dogs with one-on-one time and attention, and activity during their stay in the shelter. The program also teaches and develops the animal handling skills of volunteers and staff to ensure their safety.
- 2nd Chance Pet Adoptions Inc. (Raleigh, NC) – $14,920 to provide medical care dogs need before transport, rather than after, putting an earlier end to illnesses and injuries they may come in with. This program improves the quality of life for transport dogs before they begin their journey north.
Collaborative Partnership Grants Addressing Regional Supply and Demand
Sometimes what homeless dogs need more than anything is transportation to a new place. Whether they’ve been displaced in a natural disaster or are somewhere with too many other dogs that need homes, a change of scenery can be the key to finding a loving, forever home. Recipients of these grants included:
- Humane Society of Tulsa (Tulsa, OK)– $25,000 to support transports as part of the “HUB” Pet Transport Initiative by providing transport and preventive care for pets at risk from at-capacity shelters in the U.S, particularly in Oklahoma and Texas. A partnership between PEDIGREE Foundation, Banfield Foundation and VCA Charities – all nonprofit organizations connected to Mars Petcare – funded this initiative.
- Greater Good Charities – $50,000 to support a series of “Flying to Forever Homes” transports as part of Greater Good Charities’ Good Flights program. PEDIGREE Foundation joined Mars Petcare in funding these flights in 2021.
- Human Animal Support Services, a program of American Pets Alive!/Austin Pets Alive! – $50,000 to continue to explore best practices and support solutions for regional supply-and-demand challenges. This year’s grant will fund connecting at-risk Texas shelter dogs with adoptive families in other parts of the country through a network of partnerships developed by American Pets Alive! and a hub established at the Austin Pets Alive! facility.
Disaster Relief Grants Providing Emergency Support
From natural disasters to puppy mill seizures, the need for disaster support continued in 2021. PEDIGREE Foundation worked to provide as much help as possible, including providing COVID-19 relief grants for a second year in a row.
The Foundation contributed over $63,000 for disaster relief efforts across the country. Recipients were:
- A Doggie 4 U (Pipe Creek, TX)
- Agape Animal Rescue (Nashville, TN)
- American Humane (Washington, D.C.)
- Animal Rescue Corps, (Washington, D.C.)
- Animal Rescue of New Orleans, Inc. (New Orleans, LA)
- Friends of the Animals, BR (Baton Rouge, LA)
- Hound Haven (Cheyenne, WY)
- Humane Rescue Alliance (Washington, D.C.)
- Humane Society of Tulsa (Tulsa, OK)
- Jackson County Humane (Maquoketa, IA)
- Nashville Humane Association (Nashville, TN)
- Proverbs 12:10 (Burns, TN)
- The Louisiana SPCA (New Orleans, LA)
In addition, more than 50 shelters and rescues received COVID-19 relief grants of up to $2,500. In total, $99,500 was awarded. Recipients were:
- Adams County SPCA (Gettysburg, PA)
- Agape Animal Rescue (Nashville, TN)
- Animal Control & Welfare Project, Inc (Hinton, WV)
- Animal Refugee Response (Lower Lake, CA)
- Animal Rescue & K9 Charities Inc. (Brookfield, CT)
- Animal Rescue League of New Hampshire (Bedford, NH)
- A Pathway to Hope (North Haledon, NJ)
- Atascosa Animal Allies (Pleasanton, TX)
- Austin Humane Society (Austin, TX)
- Bainbridge Decatur County Humane Society (Bainbridge, GA)
- Brandywine Valley SPCA (West Chester, PA)
- Cabin Critters Rescue (Wheelersburg, OH)
- Castle of Dreams Animal Rescue (Cliffwood, NJ)
- Centre County PAWS (State College, PA)
- Chemung County Humane Society & SPCA (Elmira, NY)
- DAG SHIP Rescue (Deming, NM)
- Des Moines County Humane Society (Burlington, IA)
- Forgotten Tails, Inc. (Colonial Heights, VA)
- Franklin County Humane Society Inc./Planned Pethood Clinic & Adoption Center (Rocky Mount, VA)
- Friends For Life (Houston, TX)
- Friends of Animals in Need (North Kingstown, RI)
- Furever Furkidz Rescue (Chesterland, OH)
- Grateful Hearts Senior Dog Rescue (Chillicothe, OH)
- Greater Androscoggin Humane Society (Lewiston, ME)
- Hope4Hearts Animal Rescue, Inc. (Mobile, AL)
- Humane Rescue Alliance (Washington, D.C.)
- Humane Society of Florida, Inc. (Boca Raton, FL)
- Humane Society of Jefferson County, TN (Jefferson City, TN)
- Kauai SPCA (Kilauea, HI)
- Labrador Friends of the South (Cumming, GA)
- Little Shelter Animal Rescue and Adoption Center (Huntington, NY)
- Loli’s Place, Inc. (New Hope, PA)
- Middleburg Humane Foundation (Marshall, VA)
- Monticello 2nd Chance Fur Dogs (Monticello, AR)
- New Hope Animal Rescue Center (Henderson, KY)
- Norfolk Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Norfolk, VA)
- Northeast Ohio SPCA (Parma, OH)
- Paws with Pride Animal Rescue (Canton, OH)
- Ramapo-Bergen Animal Refuge (Oakland, NJ)
- Sacramento SPCA (Sacramento, CA)
- Safe Animal Shelter of Orange Park, Inc. (Middleburg, FL)
- Sam’s Hope (Richboro, PA)
- Second Chance Animal Rescue (Villalba, Puerto Rico)
- Second Chance Animal Rescue Society (Auburn, KS)
- Siskiyou Spay Neuter Incentive Program and Emergency Rescue (Yreka, CA)
- SPCA of Martinsville and Henry County (Martinsville, VA)
- SPCA of Winchester, Frederick and Clarke Counties (Winchester, VA)
- Stealing Hearts Rescue (Glendale, AZ)
- Sweetwater Valley Dog Rescue (Sweetwater, TN)
- Texas Humane Heroes (Leander, TX)
- The Animal Interest League and Sanctuary (Delta, CO)
- The Humane Society of Harford County, Inc. (Fallston, MD)
- The Pepper Foundation (Studio City, CA)
- Tri City Animal Sanctuary (Somerset, TX)
- Wag On Inn Rescue (Oakhurst, NJ)
- Wisconsin Humane Society (WHS) (Milwaukee, WI)
Adoption Grants Helping Dogs Get Loving Homes
Finally, in 2021 PEDIGREE Foundation joined forces with Mars Petcare’s BETTER CITIES FOR PETS™ program to fund two multi-city adoption events to help pets get adopted. PEDIGREE Foundation grants covered dog adoptions.
- The first event, in June, included two shelters in Nashville, TN – Nashville Humane Association and Williamson County Animal Center – and one in Charlotte, NC – Humane Society of Charlotte.
- The second event, in October, included three shelters in Nashville, TN – Nashville Humane Association, Williamson County Animal Center and Metro Animal Care and Control – and two in Kansas City, MO – KC Pet Project and The Humane Society of Greater Kansas City.
