National Nonprofit Petco Love Invests in Cat’s Cradle to Help
Increase Access to Veterinary Care for Pets in Augusta, Rockingham, and Page Counties

Cat’s Cradle received a $1,000 grant investment from national nonprofit Petco Love in support of their lifesaving work for animals in Augusta, Rockingham, and Page Counties.

Petco Love is a national nonprofit leading change for pets by harnessing the power of love to make communities and pet families closer, stronger, and healthier. Since its founding in 1999, Petco Love has invested $370 million in adoption and other lifesaving efforts. And Petco Love helps find loving homes for pets in partnership with Petco and more than 4,000 organizations — like ours — across North America, with 6.7 million pets adopted and counting.

The investment in Cat’s Cradle is part of $1.5M in grants recently announced by Petco Love for more than 100 spay/neuter clinics and other low-cost veterinary care providers to help increase access to veterinary care for pets in their communities. The lifesaving investments are also being granted to reduce economic euthanasia, and the surrender of pets to shelters when families are not able to afford needed veterinary treatment.

“Petco Love knows pets are family and we strive to take care of them the best we can, though the reality is not everyone has equal access to veterinary care as many pet parents face difficult financial times,” said Susanne Kogut, President of Petco Love. “That’s why we are proud to support our partner animal welfare organizations in providing helpful services in their communities, so we can keep pets and their families together.”

“We are thrilled to receive this lifesaving investment to help our community with access to veterinary care. It is important that we help our community keep their pets and not surrender them to the shelter due to financial constraints,” said Sherri Heishman, Executive Director of Cat’s Cradle.

As part of Petco Love’s mission to make pet families healthier and increase access to veterinary care, through its Vaccinated and Loved campaign, Petco Love reached its goal of distributing 2 MILLION free pet vaccines for family pets in November 2023! The campaign was launched in August 2021, encouraging Petco Love animal welfare partners to host free vaccine clinics. Vaccinated and Loved marked its first significant milestone in September 2022, when Petco Love reached its one-millionth free pet vaccine distribution for family pets and committed to another one million free pet vaccines.

Cat’s Cradle is a nonprofit organization with a mission to ensure and maintain a safe, compassionate community for cats in the Shenandoah Valley. We do this by facilitating and promoting spay/neuter and Trap, Neuter and Return (TNR), conducting foster-based rescue and adoption from local shelters, and providing pet retention and rehoming programs. Our intent is to steadily decrease the intake of cats and kittens at local shelters and to ultimately end the euthanasia of healthy adoptable pets in the communities we serve. We facilitate over 3,500 spay/neuter surgeries per year and perform TNR services for over 1,200 cats in our community. Through October, we have taken in 626 cats from our shelters and have had 578 adoptions for 2023.
 

For more information about Cat’s Cradle, visit catscradleva.org. Learn more about Petco Love here: petcolove.org.