Reunited: How Carrie and Penelope found their way home

According to a recent survey by the Urban Resource Institute (URI) and the National Domestic Violence Hotline (The Hotline), 72% of domestic violence survivors are not aware that domestic violence shelters have pet resources. 

Unfortunately, this was true for Carrie* when she found herself seeking safety at a domestic violence shelter. Her one-year-old mixed-breed dog, Penelope*, was family to Carrie and her children. Unaware that resources were available to survivors with pets, and because it was no longer safe for Penelope to remain in the abusive home, Carrie made the heartbreaking decision to surrender her to the local animal shelter. 

Devastated and now in a shelter herself, Carrie told her advocate about Penelope. Thankfully, Carrie’s advocate was already familiar with RedRover’s Safe Escape grant program, which provides funding to temporarily board pets of domestic violence survivors, and immediately reached out to us for help. 

This was a unique situation – not only was Carrie in need of funding to board Penelope, she first needed to get her beloved pup out of the animal shelter, which required an adoption fee Carrie could not afford. Our Safe Escape grant case manager reached out to the animal shelter directly to see if they would be willing to waive the adoption fee. Luckily, the shelter was more than willing to help reunite Carrie and Penelope and kindly waived the fee. 

We worked quickly to approve a grant and get Penelope safely into a boarding facility while Carrie worked to rebuild their lives. 

Two months later, Carrie, her two children, and Penelope were finally reunited and able to start their new lives – together. 

*Names changed to protect privacy

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