The Grey Muzzle Organization improves the lives of at-risk senior dogs by providing funding and resources to animal shelters, rescue organizations, sanctuaries, and other non-profit groups nationwide.

We envision a world where no old dog dies alone and afraid.

The Grey Muzzle Organization improves the lives of at-risk senior dogs by providing funding and resources to animal shelters, rescue organizations, sanctuaries, and other non-profit groups nationwide.

Our Achievements in Fiscal Year 2015

We provided combined funding of $157,000 to 47 organizations in 26 states across the country. We also initiated our once-a-year grant cycle, and it was a success! That program supported twelve new grantees, three of which are from states new to our grantee list: Connecticut, Georgia, and Michigan. The grants support a variety of senior dog programs, including medical and dental care, long-term foster care, therapy dog training, senior-for-senior adoptions, hospice care, and community education and outreach. In addition to our normal grant cycle, we were able to provide emergency funding to an organization to assist senior dogs that were seized from a hoarding situation.

We completed a comprehensive strategic planning process that provides a road map for our work over the next three years. Our goals are ambitious, but we believe that we have a responsibility to help even more senior dogs in need. We will improve the grant process and award even more grants, develop more resources to help organizations worldwide that want to create senior dog programs, and increase our outreach and education efforts to raise awareness about the needs of senior dogs.

Grey Muzzle’s message about the importance of caring for senior dogs is reaching people around the world. Our social media followers nearly doubled over the past year. International cities from which we draw the most followers are Cairo, Calcutta, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangkok, Bangalore, and London.

In June 2015, we hired our first Executive Director, Dr. Lisa Lunghofer. We have had the pleasure of working closely with her on strategic planning and board development. She has proven to be insightful, passionate and dedicated to improving the lives of homeless senior dogs. We are confident that Dr. Lisa has the knowledge, skills, experience, and talent to successfully lead The Grey Muzzle Organization and help us to build on our achievements and pursue exciting new opportunities.

Victoria Stillwell and Dr. Kathy Cooney, joined our Advisory Board. They are passionate about senior dogs and working with us to promote awareness of senior dogs’ needs.

We provided more than 90 dog beds (a cost of almost $10,000) to animal shelters across the country. Those beds gave senior dogs a soft and comfortable place to rest—relief from cold concrete floors.

Financial Report

We are proud to report a program ratio—the percentage of total expenses devoted to programs and services—of 94% for fiscal year 2015, and we have ended the year in our strongest financial position to date. The Grey Muzzle Organization is grateful to the more than 1,500 individuals and businesses that made donations during fiscal year 2015. Donations are critical to our success, and thanks to our generous donors, revenues increased to over $225,000.