Animal Welfare Professionals

Hello,

I am new here. I came here because I was trying to search for resources to help a dog that was abandoned in the backyard of a friend's new property. The previous owners' home was foreclosed and they left their dog. I agreed to take the dog in while we try to find him a family and get him help. In order to have him in my neighborhood, I have a limited amount of time to make sure he is registered in my county (Broward County) and complete his vaccines. We want to get this done for him and perhaps have him neutered so as to help in the process of getting him adopted and sent to the right home (we are worried about a breeder taking him and he has truly gone through enough and feel uneasy about him going into an environment like that as a rescue). I would like to raise money for him or apply for some way to cover these costs. Does anyone have any ideas? I am a bit conflicted of taking him to a pound and leaving him there in the case he does not get adopted. I do not know if I could live with that. I am sorry if it seems like I am making excuses but I would really like to take the steps to get him healthy and happy! Please let me know if you know any resources that help rescue dogs with these medical bills. Thank you! Ace thanks you too!

Thanks for helping Ace out! Hopefully someone more local to you will be able to reply with more tailored advice, but here's a couple spots to start looking for low-cost medical services.

Many of the Tractor Supply stores hold low-cost vaccine and preventive care clinics. Since I'm not familiar with your area, I tried to find the closest one, and it looks like the store in Loxahatchee, FL is having a clinic on March 7th. You might be able to find one closer to you. Here's a link to pricing: https://petvet.vippetcare.com/services-pricing/individual-pricing/ Rabies vaccines are $20 and the 5-in-1 DHPP vaccine is $34.

There is also a list of groups who offer spay/neuter assistance here: https://flaspay.com/broward and it looks like some of these include other medical care.

Thank you. I will try these options. I have signed up for SNIP and am waiting approval. I am not even sure if they are active but fingers crossed. I also contacted one of the low-cost neutering hospitals and they asked me to call later today. So I hope they can help. Any additional suggestions are welcome. Tysvm!

If you want to get him adopted but don't want him to go to a shelter, you could look for a rescue that will let you foster him until he is adopted. They will probably need you to take photos and video of him being a regular guy to and perhaps bring him to an adoption event to help get him adopted. In this case, they would pay for all of his medical needs. You mentioned a breeder might want him so I assume he's a pure bred which will make it even easier to get him adopted, assuming he is friendly. Good luck and thank you for stepping up!

Hi Diane,

Thank you for your comments. I actually don't want him to be taken by a breeders but yes. I also have asked a few shelters and they have told me I have to surrender him in order for them to pay his bills. They then said they will see if I can help foster him or be placed with another dog. This isn't the situation I want to be in. I also don't want to give him to a kill shelter. There may be a family in my neighborhood who are interested but I will have to work towards covering the bills in order to keep him in the neighborhood before I feel I can approach the family more so.

If you haven't already, you may want to go ahead and list him on Adopt-a-pet. It lets individuals as well as shelters list animals for adoption, and has some tools to help with adoption screening. https://rehome.adoptapet.com/

As far as his medical costs go, it sounds like you have a group of folks who are invested in him, but money is still tight. Have you considered running an online fundraiser through GoFundMe or even just using a Paypal/Venmo account? If you can get half a dozen people to give you $10 each, that would at least let you get him vaccinated through one of the clinics. Doing it as a step-by-step process might be the best option right now, until you find a local group that can help.

Your best bet is to offer to foster through a local shelter or rescue. Shelters and rescues are always in great need of fosters and that would be a huge help and could save that dog. That's the best way to get him the medical care he needs.