Aware And Prepared

How to Leave Abuse Without Leaving Your Pet Behind

• Mandi Pratt • Season 3 • Episode 29

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How many pet parents do we have here? Don’t our pets provide so much unconditional love and help us heal through heartbreaks and difficult times?

Mandi shares an important update about RedRover and their Purple Leash Project, a partnership with Purina that helps domestic violence survivors escape abuse without leaving their pets behind. 

From grants for pet-friendly shelters to resources for boarding and fostering, these programs are helping survivors and their pets find safety together.

Learn practical ways to support this cause and access critical resources to help pets and their people stay safe and heal together.


RESOURCES


RedRover website and Instagram
Supports domestic violence survivors and their pets


Safe Place for Pets website and Instagram
Search by ZIP code for pet-friendly DV shelters, boarding and fostering options for pets


National Domestic Violence Hotline website and #1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
Support for survivors in crisis


Purina Purple Leash Project website and shop
Grants and awareness campaigns to increase pet-friendly shelters


Connect with Mandi:

The primary purpose of the Women Aware and Prepared Podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute advice or services. Please use common sense for your own situation.

 Hey, brave one. Welcome to the Aware and Prepared Podcast.

I'm your host, Mandy Pratt, trauma-informed, resilient speaker, domestic violence victim advocate, and narcissistic abuse survivor. Here we keep it real with true crime stories and real world strategies to prevent emotional and physical harm. My guests and I share a mix of insight and survivor grit, all to help you feel safer, trust yourself more deeply.

And live with greater peace and power. Let's trade fear for freedom and step into the peace that you deserve.

Hey there. Welcome back to the Aware and Prepared Podcast. How many pet lovers do we have here?

Lots, right? I myself am a crazy cat lady and was a dog. Mom will always be a dog mom. And today I just wanted to give you an update. So in the past I had shared about a very special nonprofit that I love that helps keep pets and their families together even. During domestic violence when a victim is trying to flee.

So I wanted to share with you what they are up to now to explain more about what they do. I'm gonna read to you from this nonprofit newsletter that I just got today, just a couple blurbs,

In our last episode, Janice and I talked about real life examples of domestic violence. So people can understand that further than just simply raising awareness to domestic violence, which is also great, but we wanted to take it a step further to support you all. So one of the barriers that we mentioned that key people from leaving is when they have a pet and they don't have anywhere to take their pet.

So they don't wanna leave them there. Because they know their pet can be harmed. And it's hard to find a shelter or a family member wherever you're going. To flee to that can bring your pet with you. So a lot of people simply don't leave because they don't, have a place to go with their pet.

And all of us pet lovers know that our pets are our soulmates, our best friends, right? They. Share with us this unconditional love. So I'm gonna share with you the couple of blurbs here, an update from Red Rover. Who help keep pets and their families together.

So October's Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and a chance to raise awareness about the link between domestic violence and animal abuse, as well as show support for DV survivors and their pets through our 25 by 2025 campaign. We've worked diligently to help more domestic shelters create pet friendly programming by the end of 2025.

And while we haven't reached our 25% goal as we had hoped, we are currently at 19.5%. We are certainly not giving up. Red Rover and Purina's Purple Leash Project will continue to work with DV shelters across the nation to create programming. That allows survivors to escape abuse with their pets. This year, Purina has generously pledged to match a hundred percent of donations made to Red Rover.

In support of the Purple Leash project, up to 500,000 for each Purple Leash project grant awarded to a shelter. This means more survivors and their pets have more options to leave an abuser. Survivors often stay out of fear of what an abuser will do to a beloved pet if they're left behind. Fewer options equals fewer lives saved.

So if you want to help out with this, you can donate to Red Rover. And I will leave the link in the show notes. So you can just click underneath this episode and you can click the link that says Red Rover. They are matching any donations up to 500,000, so that is amazing. And they have a shop as well.

I'll drop that in shop dot purple leash project.com where you can purchase this cute tote. That has like purple, handles on it. And there's a super cute sweatshirt for your dog that says Courageous together and some other goodies, a t-shirt that I have and that I wear. Um, and I've shown on my Instagram at Women o Wear and Prepared.

And just want to also share with you a website called Safe Havens for Pets . And you'll see there that you can type in your zip code and they'll show you animal organizations around you that provide boarding or fostering for pet.

As well as domestic violence shelters that do offer a pet program. So they're the ones who offer the different solutions for you so you don't feel stuck. So make sure that you save that somewhere, because if hopefully you never need it, but we all know somebody or will know somebody who's going to need that.

So make sure that you save that. And if you're on Instagram, you can go follow red rover org. I'll put a link in the show notes and you can also follow Safe Havens for Pets and you'll see. In their bio there, there's different links you can click on and then it's fun to see in their feed.

You know, they post photos of all the work they're doing, they're doing, um, some construction projects, sometimes Red River does for the shelters to make like fencing, so dogs can be brought there too, you know, different things like that. So go check those out for sure. So at Safe Havens for Pets and at Red Rover org a survey conducted by the Urban Resource Institute and the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Out of the 2,500 individuals who interacted with the hotline, 97% of them reported that keeping their pets with them is an important factor in deciding whether to seek shelter.



Statistics show an estimated one in three women and one in four men experience some form.

Of domestic abuse in their lifetimes.

71% of women in domestic violence shelters report their abuser, threatened, injured, or killed a pet as a means of control. That stat is by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Nearly half of victims stay in abusive situations rather than leave their pet behind.



Please, if you're being abused, make sure that you call the hotline 1-800-799-SAFE, SAFE. . And what is abuse? It's not just physical abuse, it's also emotional abuse, verbal abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse.

It's when an abuser uses power and control. To hold that over your head and make you do things you don't wanna do. They make you feel crazy. There's so much to it. If you have any questions at all, please call the hotline 1-800-799-SAFE,

so, lessons learned from today where, number one, there are resources available to assist domestic violence victims get to safety with a pet.

Number two, if an abuser is harming a pet, sorry to say, but you're probably next, please call the domestic violence hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE, SAFE. If your abuser's going to see your phone history, please use a friend's phone or call two one one first and ask to be patched through to the domestic violence hotline.

You can also go to their website, the hotline.org. Again, be wise and do this from a library computer or a friend's computer if somebody's going to see your computer and harm you because of that. By the way, not only am I a pet owner, but I also have a pet portrait business that I've been doing for a long time

if you'd like to take a peek at the adorable dog and cat faces , you can go to Gray Boy pet portraits.com, G-R-E-Y-B-O-Y, pet portraits.com or Instagram at Gray Boy Pet Prints. I'll post both links in the show notes for you. If you're a pet lover too, please share this episode. With a fellow pet lover by clicking on my podcast and on the top three right dots, you can click there and share the episode by texting it to somebody.

Thanks for being here on the Aware and Prepared Podcast. Don't forget to hit, follow that little plus sign in your app and the top right ensures you never miss an episode. Curious how tuned in your intuition really is. Take the free quiz at Aware and Prepared Life and get your score. See how sharp your inner guide is.

Remember, you are worthy of a safe and peaceful life. Talk to you next week.