Floyd runs through agility course with Erie Humane Society volunteer
Erie Humane Society volunteer Molly Bean runs Floyd through an agility course. Floyd was adopted 866 days after he arrived at the Erie shelter.
Erie Humane Society
- Happy Bark, an Erie organization that rescues dogs from Kentucky shelters, gave the Erie Humane Society a no-interest loan.
- Happy Bark CEO Eric Pullock said the loan was given to support the important work the Erie Humane Society does for animals in the community.
- Both Happy Bark and the Erie Humane Society are independent nonprofits that rely on donations and community support.
Rescue organizations helping rescue organizations in Erie. That was the motivation behind a no-interest loan that Happy Bark provided to the Erie Humane Society in late March.
While sharing the same mission to rescue and rehome dogs, Happy Bark, a rescue organization based in Erie without a physical location, saw an opportunity to provide support.
To help an organization that Happy Bark CEO Eric Pullock says is “healing from a temporary bruise,” Happy Bark provided a no-interest loan to the Erie Humane Society, located at 2407 Zimmerly Road, for just over $20,000.
This loan comes to the Humane Society after former executive director Nicole Leone was charged with making 139 unauthorized charges to the Humane Society credit cards totaling $32,445.69. It was the Humane Society who reported Leone.
Having support from other rescue organizations is appreciated by the Erie Humane Society, according to Jennifer Gornall, Humane Society board president.
“The Erie Humane Society is incredibly grateful for this gesture from Happy Bark,” Gornall said in a statement. “It speaks volume that a fellow rescue organization was willing to step up to help at a time when our organization needed it.”
Pullock stressed that this was not a donation but a loan because he feels that the Humane Society will overcome said “bruise.”
“It came from a joint mission,” Pullock said. “We share that mission with all animal organizations. We know that the Humane Society does incredible work in our area.”
What sparked Happy Bark’s interest in providing the loan?
While running a rescue organization that focuses primarily on rescuing dogs from shelters in Kentucky and providing them new homes in the Erie area, Pullock said Happy Bark and its volunteers realize the important work that local rescue organizations like the Humane Society do in Erie.
“We rescue primarily from the state of Kentucky where shelters are at capacity or over capacity,” Pullock said. “Those folks have to make tough decisions, which in a lot of cases are life and death decisions. We help them out by rescuing dogs and bringing them here. We can only do that because the Humane Society does what they do by managing the local stray population here.”
Pullock continued, “With the other organizations like the ANNA Shelter or Because You Care, all those organizations focus primarily locally but will help other organizations when needed. We’ve always said from our beginning we only have the room to focus somewhere else less fortunate because so many great organizations are focusing locally, otherwise we would be focusing locally.”
Happy Bark, which was founded in 2020, did not see an immediate need for the money it provided. Pullock says that it does have long-term goals, including a possible local shelter.
For the time being, though, Pullock said the nonprofit was able to expense the loan and focus on building a positive relationship with another organization.
Happy Bark, Humane Society exist with local support, donations
Happy Bark, a certified nonprofit, relies solely on donations from their adopters and the Erie Community.
“Our largest donations come from adopters who we have come in contact with through adoption,” Pullock said. “They will usually tag on a donation as part of the adoption process or send us a recurring donation through our website or other systems we use. We of course have heroes that send us large checks occasionally and Erie Gives helps us out tremendously.”
The Erie Humane Society, being an independent nonprofit, also relies on local support and donations.
“Like Happy Bark, the Erie Humane Society is an independent nonprofit, so we rely completely on local support and donations,” Gornall said. “This generous show of support from Happy Bark underscores that we are truly all in this together and that by lifting one another up, we all get stronger.”
Contact Nicholas Sorensen at nsorensen@gannett.com.
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