XENIA — HALO K9 Behavior recently received a Rachael Ray Save Them All grant from national animal welfare organization Best Friends Animal Society.
The grant is for a program designed to help families keep their pets when medical or behavioral issues could result in the pet being relinquished.
“Too often a family is put in the situation of letting go of a beloved pet because they can’t afford medical care, or maybe the animal has a simple behavior issue that a consultation with one of our experts could help resolve,” a release from HALO said. “We will use this $10,746 grant to help keep pets with their families.”
HALO is an active partner in the Best Friends Network, which offers help and support to shelters, rescue groups, and other animal welfare organizations working to save lives in their communities. The Rachael Ray Save Them All Grants is a grant program, administered by Best Friends and funded by The Rachael Ray Foundation that provides grants to shelters for euthanasia reduction initiatives.
HALO was founded in January 2018 with the intention of being a transitional campus for shelter dogs who show signs of various behavior issues such as aggression, resource guarding, separation anxiety, or reactivity. Its goal has been to work through these behaviors with positive reinforcement and various behavior protocols so that these dogs can find their perfect forever families.
“We work with a variety of shelters and rescues all across the state of Ohio,” the release said. “This grant in particular will help us to be able to better serve our local community in Greene County. We are partnering with Greene County Animal Control to create an intake diversion program to prevent dogs from being surrendered to the shelter. This will allow us to be able to better assess the dog and their needs and prevent any undue stress from being in the shelter environment.”
This will also help take the burden off the shelter as they already see an influx of dogs and requests to take dogs on a daily basis.
“We will be able to adequately help owners and their pets stay together by working through challenges they face when it comes to training and behavior, or re-home their dogs to new adopters without having them step foot in the shelter,” the release said.
