Pedigree Foundation Awards $15,000 PEDIGREE Foundation Grant to Revitalize Washington, DC Puppy Fostering

Lucky Dog Animal Rescue secures $15,000 to combat the puppy shelter surge

Washington D.C., Jan 30, 2026 —  Lucky Dog Animal Rescue is proud to announce it has received a $15,000 grant from the PEDIGREE Foundation to address a critical turning point in animal rescue. This funding will launch "Puppy Fosters To the Rescue!", an innovative program designed to support Washington, D.C. fosters while facing a nationwide surge in puppies entering the shelter system.

For more than 16 years, Lucky Dog has served as a lifeline for thousands of puppies, but the current landscape is unprecedented. We are receiving a record number of requests to save puppies from overwhelmed shelters, but we do not have enough fosters to save them all. Contributing factors include volunteers who feel they cannot foster puppies after returning to office-based schedules and an increased length of stay in foster care as puppy adoptions have slowed down in the last few years.  This grant provides the essential tools to revitalize the foster experience, ensuring that, among other things, a busy professional schedule is not a barrier to saving a life. 

Innovative Solutions for Modern Fosters

The "Puppy Fosters To the Rescue!" initiative focuses on high-impact strategies to make fostering compatible with the modern D.C. lifestyle. The grant will fund several key pillars of the program:

• Professional Home Setups: Providing fosters with specialized equipment—including exercise pens (e-pens), covers, and protective flooring—to create safe, secure environments for puppies during the workday.
• Puppy Foster Support Teams: Developing a volunteer "relief network" to assist fosters with mid-day checks and coverage when they are required to be away from home.
• Community Recruitment & Engagement: Hosting regular D.C. open houses and "Puppy Foster Meet-ups" to build a stronger, more connected community of volunteers and eliminate barriers to participation.
• Knowledge Sharing: Partnering with other large-scale rescues to develop "Secrets of Puppy Fostering" educational materials for current volunteers and adopters who want to pay it forward.

"We are facing a challenge we haven't seen since our founding 16 years ago: a massive increase in puppies needing help at the exact moment that foster availability is shifting due to office returns," said Mirah Horowitz, CEO & Founder, Lucky Dog Animal Rescue. "The PEDIGREE Foundation's support allows us to evolve. By providing the right gear and a dedicated support system, we are revitalizing our program to make it possible for D.C. animal lovers to save lives without compromising their professional commitments."

A Shared Commitment to Saving Lives

The PEDIGREE Foundation is a philanthropic organization dedicated to helping dogs in need find loving homes. This partnership allows Lucky Dog to strengthen its Washington, D.C. operations, ensuring that the rescue can continue to say "yes" to litters in high-kill shelters that have run out of space.
 

About PEDIGREE Foundation 

We believe every dog deserves a loving, forever home. PEDIGREE Foundation is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization working to help end pet homelessness. Nearly 3.1 million dogs end up in shelters and rescues every year, and nearly half never find a home. The foundation was established in 2008 by Mars Petcare, maker of PEDIGREE® food for dogs, to help increase dog adoption rates. We've awarded more than 6,300 grants and over $14 million to U.S. shelters and rescues that help dogs in need. Since launching our Canadian grant program in 2022, we have provided $345k CAD to local shelters and rescues in need across Canada, as well as $20k CAD in Disaster Relief. At PEDIGREE Foundation, we're working toward a day when all dogs are safe, secure, cared for, fed well and loved. See how you can help at PedigreeFoundation.org.