By Emily Fromm | VP of development
Our Summer Cooling Grants are saving lives at shelters including Pima Animal Care Center (PACC) in Tucson, Ariz., by helping the dogs there get adopted.
The shelter used our grant to install an overhead misting system in two visitation yards, meaning potential adopters can now comfortably spend time getting to know the resident dogs. "It's a game-changer," Animal Care Advocate Justin Gallick tells us.
In Tucson, temperatures have already topped 111 degrees, and before the outdoor misting system was installed, potential adopters did not have a cool, comfortable place in which to visit with the shelter's dogs. "Now they can take the time necessary to make that bond," Gallick says.
The grant came at just the right time, since the shelter – which takes in nearly 25,000 lost and homeless pets a year – is currently being inundated with unwanted litters. "It's raining puppies and kittens," Adoption Coordinator Ellie Beaubien says.
When we visited PACC to check out its new misters, we brought along kiddie pools for each of the yards. We also made cooling catsicles to share with the shelter's cats (get the recipe for catsicles here), and pupsicles that we made by freezing low-sodium chicken broth in an ice cube tray.
While the misters in the visitation yards certainly make adopters more comfortable, they also give the shelter's nursing-mother dogs a place to take a break from their puppies, Beaubien says. Before the summer, staff members would give each nursing mother half an hour of exercise and fresh air in the yards – but when the high temperatures arrived, that became too dangerous.
Now, thanks to the misting system, "nobody's getting overheated," Beaubien says. "We really needed those. It was a great investment."
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By Emily Fromm | VP of development
By Emily Fromm | VP of development
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