LAKE ERIE LABRADOR RETRIEVER RESCUE INC

Our largest expense is vet care. The dogs in care are given full medical assessments and treatments, as needed. We run full blood workups, including heartworm and tick bone illness testing on all dogs we take into our care as a baseline to determining their medical status. They are spayed/neutered, updated on their vaccinations, de-wormed and started on a monthly flea/tick prevention. They will also be started on a monthly heartworm prevention, if they are heartworm negative. Heartworm positive dogs are given a multi-month heartworm treatment. In addtion, we treat any other diseases, injuries, or dental issues that our veterinarians find during examinations. This is done to prepare the dogs for sucessful adoption to their forever homes. Our organization takes in Labradors from local public animal control shelters and other humane organizations. We will place them in foster homes, not an isolated shelter. This allows us to give each dog extensive handling and training to ensure that they can be sucessfully placed in a forever home and not be returned to the rescue. Our organization also takes in some of the sickest dogs that the local public animal shelters do not have money to treat, causing most of these Labradors to be unadoptable resulting in euthanasia. That requires extra time and expense, which reduces the number of dogs we can rescue each year. However, we rescue these dogs because, otherwise they would be euthanized. LELRR placed 167 dogs in 2025 into permanent homes.

Spay/Neuter Services - 76 dogs in 2024. Spaying helps prevent uterine infections and neutering helps prevent testicular cancer and some prostate problems. Spaying reduces the population of dogs in our area and reduces the need for euthanasia or rescue. We do not adopt out a dog until it has been fully vetted, including spay/neuter surgery, unless there are extenuating circumstances. One thing we believe that sets our rescue apart from the rest is that we also run a full blood workup on each dog, so that any cell counts or organ abnormalities can be addressed before the dog is safely sedated for surgery. This costs an extra $100, or so, per dog, above and beyond the stated $18,388, stated above for the surgeries themselves. We pride ourselves in providing top-notch veterinary care for all of our dogs at the veterinary clinic. In an effort to help more dogs, we continue to look for more cost effective care while keeping the level of service and quality high.