Each month, we donate to 10 animal shelters nominated by you. One of the shelters we will be donating to is San Diego House Rabbit Society (SDHRS). After reading their nomination email they sent toblog@cuddleclones.com, we were so happy we could help them out! 

About San Diego House Rabbit Society

Rabbits are the third most popular pet in the US but a lot of people get rabbits believing them to be good first time pets, gifts for children, or other reasons that later lead to unwanted and surrendered pets when the bunnies lose their initial appeal. Many people also don't realize the importance of spaying and neutering and end up with exponentially more rabbits than they originally planned for! That’s where SDHRS steps in. 

No matter a bunnies' history, SDHRS is committed to finding forever homes for their shelter rabbits, and for those who have extremely high medical demands are taken care of in sanctuary foster homes so they are guaranteed homes for the remainder of their lives. They work together with local shelters and humane societies to help rehabilitate and adopt rabbits to loving homes. It's thanks to the network of shelters transferring rabbits, finding fosters, shelter space, and resources that are especially important for medical needs or behavior needs rabbits to find homes suited for each rabbit's needs as an individual. San Diego is very lucky in that all of their local shelters are no-kill because rescues like SDHRS help care for and find homes for rabbits that may otherwise face multiple surrenders or euthanasia at a shelter with limited resources.

How COVID-19 affected the shelter

During the pandemic, SDHRS has faced decreased adoptions. Because of limited space, supplies, and people, the shelter could not rescue as many rabbits. They are a small rescue with limited staff, so when COVID-19 resulted in less business in their bunny supply store, boarding services, grooming services, and donations, staff hours were cut. On top of the care demands of the rabbits in SDHRS care, the staff and adoptions team had to quickly revise and adapt the adoption process to become 100% virtual in order to maintain biosecurity measures, while still helping rabbits find homes even though the shelter is not open for the public to enter. This was all exacerbated by the RHDV2 outbreak that has continued to worsen since 2020 and is something the shelter is still working hard to keep the rabbits safe from today. SDHRS receives multiple relinquishment calls on a daily basis, despite being a much smaller organization than the local humane society and county shelters, so they are very thankful for the community support that allows them to find rabbits home and continue to open their doors to rabbits in need.

If you would like to help SDHRS, you can make an individual donation to the shelterhere.  

To view a full list ofshelters we donated to last month – check out our most recent donations blog post. Do you know of a shelter in need of some extra support? Send an email to blog@cuddleclones.com and tell us more about them for a chance to be one of the 10 shelters selected for next month’s animal shelter donations. Thank you!