Featured Grant Story: Le'Land's Heart Sanctuary

Le’Land's Heart Sanctuary, founded in 1995, grew out of the need to find forever homes for dogs abandoned in the rural area surrounding Lubbock. Their mission is to proactively educate the public on responsible pet ownership, to provide quality, interactive activities between people and rescued animals and to give homeless dogs and cats a sanctuary. Placement of the animals is facilitated through PetFinder (www.lelands.petfinder.com), CritterFest, and attendance of public events.

The Sanctuary provides responsible pet ownership and safe dog/cat approach presentations to groups ranging in age from kindergarten to adult, including church groups, daycare centers, and schools. High school and college service organizations and at-risk youth groups also visit the Sanctuary for work/play days.

The Sanctuary does home visits on all their canine adoptions and works with other organizations for out of the area adoptions. From January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017 the Sanctuary has placed 32 dogs and 172 cats in their forever homes.

During 2017 the Sanctuary also expanded their services to increase feline rescue by adding “Furry Godmothers” to their organization. The Furry Godmothers specialize in kittens, aged newborn to 8 weeks. This change in programming structure has resulted in a sizeable increase in feline rehoming, and a sizeable decrease in the Sanctuary’s budget.

In addition to providing thorough education for responsible pet ownership, the Sanctuary also microchips their rehomed pets through a program provided through PetFinder and Home Again. They are also able to provide this service to additional animals as requested.

The Sanctuary also increased their community outreach activities in 2017. They were able to help 45 families feed vaccinate, sterilize, microchip, and care for their pets. They also continued to help stabilize feral cat colonies using their trap-neuter-release program. Through this process three volunteers were also able to obtain community service experience.

To learn more about Le'Land's Heart Sanctuary, please visit them online at www.lelands.petfinder.com or on Facebook.