2025 Year End

Happy New Year!

In the picture, you see the last two dogs that we brought in for 2025. Deet and Charlie Brown are starting the new year in a home while they wait for their forever families to choose them!

As we close out 2025, many of us are ready to move on to a new year! It has been a year of growth and change for our little rescue. We’ve experienced highs and lows, but our goal of making a difference in saving the lives of innocent animals remains the same.

Despite the economic challenges that many small businesses and nonprofits are facing right now, we were still able to adopt out 372 dogs and cats this year! That is an increase of 21 animals from last year. We maintain a robust foster program and average about 50 foster homes at any given time. Because of community support, we can still provide medical care and any supplies that our fosters need, along with essentials like food and necessary training. We have an active dog-dating program where volunteers take our dogs for a couple of hours to expose them to new experiences and socialize them with people. This gives us additional perspective on the specific needs of our dogs when they are adopted. We have fantastic partnerships with several local businesses that allow us to host events in their stores. My Dog’s Bakery hosts a monthly outreach event and graciously accommodates us for Christmas pictures and a nail trim event in August. Doodlekins Barkery has been wonderful, hosting our puppy yoga sessions since spring of last year.

We pull from other parts of the state, and occasionally we receive a dog or two from rescue partners in the south. We couldn’t do it without our fantastic transport team, Rob Buckman and Craig Russell. These two retired gentlemen make it their mission to save the lives of animals in need. While they help several rescues, we are especially grateful for their support.

We’d also like to shout out all of our rescue partners! We are fortunate to have a good working relationship with Peoria, Tazewell, and Woodford County Animal Controls. All three make every effort to network their animals and find them rescue or forever homes. We also collaborate with several other rescues and animal controls that are fabulous to us, and we truly appreciate them.

We could not accomplish what we do without the support of our superb veterinary staff at various clinics. Thank you to Associated in Washington, Eastland in Bloomington, and our Peoria partners: Whitney, Mt. Hawley, Meadowbrook, and Big Hollow. There is not one veterinarian or staff member that we wouldn’t trust with our own pets, and we sincerely appreciate the love and care they provide to all the dogs and cats in our foster program.

In 2025, we were selected as the recipient of the Kyle Rife Jeep Jive and the Peoria Jaycees Deck the Bars—both events run by great people, and we were very fortunate to be recipients.

Three of our volunteers (Megan, Laurel, and Rilla) joined Alyssa in becoming 40 Under 40 alumni, which is a significant honor.

We were also able to help a large number of medical cases, including more than 30 dogs with heartworm, which continues to be a concern we see in rescue. Our hospice program is ongoing, and there are currently five dogs under its care. We also have two "lifers" in our program that are not adoptable and remain with their foster homes.

If you’re still reading this, we have more good news! In 2025, we also started a cat program that is doing well, successfully adopting out a handful of cats, with more recently added to the program. Additionally, we moved our office to the Peoria side of the river and now have a great space in North Peoria off University Street.

Finally, I would like to take this time to thank our board of directors, our fosters, and all of our volunteers for their time, love, and energy poured into this program. It takes a small village to make this operation happen; most of our volunteers and foster homes work full-time while dedicating countless hours to help our organization stay afloat.

Here’s to 2026 and all that it brings! I wish you all a safe and happy new year!

Alyssa

Founder/Board President

Pet Pack Rescue