The Animal Pad On-Site Visit

I visited The Animal Pad for the purposes of touring the facility, to meet the facility manager and staff, to discuss the Hero Club Gold program and to plan our first initiative.

I was met by Lauren, the Facility Manager. She was very excited to meet me and we spoke awhile about their operations. She told me that they save around 1,400 dogs/year. They have 300+ active foster families throughout the San Diego area but room for just 25 dogs in the facility itself. 

There are a total of 5 volunteers whose primary job is to care of 5 dogs each. Every dog gets walked, played with and lots of personal attention twice a day. That’s 50 dog walks every day!

They are funded entirely from donations. When I was there the place was full of boxes with toys, blankets, dog food, etc.. They have most of the social media channels and an email list but they rely largely on their 82K Facebook Fans for support.

The facility was well kept and the dogs appeared lively and energetic.

They are affiliated with a charity that picks up stray dogs throughout San Diego and brings them to The Animal Pad and other places for rescue. I met the lady who does this. That would be an incredible story to get.

I also met several of the dogs picked up in the 111 dog, dog-breeder rescue they did a few weeks ago. I guess several of the dogs got out and I met one very special dog they used to find and recover at least two of the lost dogs. That is a story worth getting too.

I took 6+ minutes video of the facility and a bunch of pictures. I also followed up with a letter detailing our expected contributions for 2023.

Finally, we discussed an upcoming initiative to vaccinate 250 street dogs in Mexico. I committed WLD to being the sole sponsor of this event up to $3,000 and said that Jesse and I would be participating in the event.

What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.