Lifeline for Senior Dogs: The Grey Muzzle Organization

Most animal lovers can’t fathom why an untold number of senior canines are surrendered or abandoned at a time when these loyal and trusting creatures need their humans the most.

Thankfully, a remarkable nonprofit organization helps animal shelters, rescues, sanctuaries, breed-specific rescues, and other nonprofits to provide crucial medical and loving care as well as second chances for these senior canines.

Throughout the past decade, The Grey Muzzle Organization has awarded more than $1.5 million in grants to these nonprofits for programs improving the lives of senior dogs in thirty-eight states from coast to coast. In 2018, sixty-six of more than three hundred applicants received grants that totaled nearly $390,000.

Grey Muzzle believes that canines aren’t a commodity and “old dogs contribute positively to our quality of life, and have much to teach us about patience, respect, responsibility, loyalty and unconditional love.” It recognizes that few rescue groups in the United States specialize in helping homeless older dogs. Through its grant program, it tries to enable “animal welfare organizations to improve their ability to provide care, comfort, and loving homes for old dogs,” according to its website.

This nonprofit organization, founded in North Carolina, requires that its grant funds be used for ongoing or new programs for senior canines, defined as age seven years or older. Some recipients have used the funds for swim therapy, hospice care, seniors adopting senior canines’ programs, and paying for medical costs of senior dogs so that they can remain with their owners who can’t afford those expenses. Many of the grants pay for medical and dental care of senior rescues.

This year, Grey Muzzle volunteers are reviewing almost 240 grant applications that will be awarded around July 1st. Grant awards average about $7,500 per organization.

Grey Muzzle was founded in 2008 by Julie Dudley, a former Microsoft program manager and daughter of a veterinarian. She recalls how, years before, a shelter contacted Old Dog Haven, which specializes in hospice care for senior dogs in western Washington state, after a family surrendered a small whippet mix that was too scared to eat. Dudley and her husband took in Nellie as a foster only to learn that the ten-year-old canine had kidney disease. Nellie lived a happy life with the couple before she succumbed to the disease after a few months.

“That really got me thinking more about how important the hospice care is,” Dudley says. It “doesn’t matter if they have years, months, or even days left, they deserve the happiest time we can give them.”

Grey Muzzle’s grant program has grown more and more each year, so much so that it hired Lisa Lunghofer as its part-time executive director in 2015, and later, a communications director for marketing and social media, as well as an administrative officer, both part-time positions.

Lunghofer’s love for dogs is obvious. With a laugh, she recalls how a six-month-old yellow Labrador retriever named Mac wound his leash around her legs at a Case Western Reserve University graduate student party in the early 1990’s. That’s when she met his owner, her future husband.

A couple of decades later, Lunghofer, who holds a Ph.D. in social policy, started focusing on pro bono work for animal welfare organizations, and later, volunteered for Grey Muzzle. She says owners give up senior dogs for a variety of reasons: change in work or living circumstances such a move and/or divorce, lack of time for the animal, and increased medical costs.

Lunghofer and a seven-member, volunteer board of directors, run Grey Muzzle. In addition, an eighteen-member Advisory Board of Directors, including ten veterinarians, serve as the group’s ambassadors spreading the word about the organization which seeks to improve “the lives of at-risk senior dogs by providing funding to animal shelters, rescue organizations, sanctuaries, and other-nonprofit groups nationwide.” Grey Muzzle allocates 89% of its budget to grants and spends the remainder on part-time salaries, mailings, internet costs, and other administrative expenses.

Grey Muzzle awards most of its grants to animal shelters and rescue groups although more than twenty breed rescue organizations have been recipients.

Safe Harbor Lab Rescue

Safe Harbor Lab Rescue of Golden, CO is one of the lucky breed rescue groups that was awarded a Grey Muzzle grant. In 2018, it received a $5,000 grant for medical care of its “good tempered, senior Labrador rescues,” says Jacky Eckard, Safe Harbor’s executive director. She was thrilled and honored when she learned about the grant that was used to pay for comprehensive blood work and urinalysis for about twenty-two of the seniors rescued by the all-volunteer organization.

Eckard notes that senior dogs may have hidden health issues that impact their quality of life but go undetected without blood and urine testing.

She says that the grant funds helped Safe Harbor rescue Labradors from shelters unable to address medical needs as well as Labradors that languished, thanks to age-related health issues and medication requirements, in shelters where younger canines were adopted. Safe Harbor also takes in senior dogs that owners no longer can care for but refuse to relinquish them to shelters because they fear their canine will be euthanized.

Safe Harbor’s goal with the Grey Muzzle grant is to “thoroughly address health needs and make these seniors attractive, adoptable candidates.” It strives each year to rescue at least 25% senior Labradors. Safe Harbor’s success in meeting these goals is obvious. It now has a waiting list for senior dog adoptions, Eckard says!

Application Process

Eckard notes that Grey Muzzle has strict, but clearly defined guidelines, for its grants. She’s participated in one of its grant applicant training webinars that she says was very, very helpful. She also received excellent constructive feedback from Grey Muzzle when one of Safe Harbor’s grant applications was unsuccessful a couple of years ago.

Lunghofer says two volunteer reviewers evaluate each grant application and rank each application on different grant criteria on a one to five scale. Then, all the grant applications are ranked from highest score to lowest. She says the grants aren’t awarded according to geographic diversity but are based solely on the quality of the application, including how the money will be used to facilitate betterment of the lives of senior dogs and how the program will be sustained after the grant money runs out.

Successful grant applicants must file quarterly reports on the progress of the use of funds and then a final report, she adds.

She recalls that Grey Muzzle grants have supported seniors adopting senior canine programs. In one instance, a Grey Muzzle grant allowed seniors to be charged lower adoption fees. Another grant provided funding to transport seniors and their elderly dogs to veterinarians, and pet stores for food. A California boxer rescue group applied the funds to find foster homes for seniors. Lunghofer adds that a Richmond, VA nonprofit used grant money to pay for swim therapy for senior dogs, and the Animal League of Iowa utilized its grant money for a senior hospice program.

Lunghofer encourages applicants to propose something creative to help seniors but they must plan to sustain the program.

She says that Grey Muzzle’s goals for this year include additional training for volunteers who review grant applications so that they identify the best of the best applications; marketing to change public perception of older dogs; and honing in on strategies to increase donations. Part of the grant review training will require reviewers to practice reviewing grant applications and writing critiques. Last year, 144 organizations asked for feedback of their grant application, Lunghofer notes. The year before, only fifty asked for feedback, she adds.

Grey Muzzle, which doesn’t have a physical office, relies solely on donations, to sustain its work. In 2018, individuals donated more than $190,000; corporations about $33,000; and foundations, about $244,000.

Lunghofer says fundraising for Grey Muzzle is limited to online appeals. Each summer for the past three years, Grey Muzzle has sponsored a summer smile contest and featured submitted photos in its calendar. It plans to continue the tradition this year. Calendars may be preordered from Grey Muzzle’s website, starting in October.

Grey Muzzle also seeks funds for its orthopedic bed program. In the past six years, Lunghofer says Grey Muzzle has donated more than $40,000 worth of beds to 100-plus shelters nationwide so senior dogs can sleep off concrete floors.

She remembers fondly a letter from a woman who only was able to keep her beloved dog Dusty at home thanks to the Kentucky Humane Society using its Grey Muzzle funds to provide medical care for Dusty. She wrote Lunghofer that it was her best Christmas present ever.

For more information about Grey Muzzle, and ways to volunteer and/or to donate, see: www.greymuzzle.org.

Related articles: https://www.caryunkelbach.com/safe-harbor-lab-rescue-a-new-life-for-so-many/

https://www.caryunkelbach.com/best-friends-saving-canines-by-the-thousands/

https://www.caryunkelbach.com/haven-for-healing-canine-health-resort