At the end of July, a Noblesville dog named Scout needed help. She had meningitis and toxoplasmosis, and her owners needed financial assistance to pay for her medication. Luckily, a nonprofit came to her rescue, providing a grant for her life-saving care.

The Bow Wow Buddies Foundation, the foundation for Camp Bow Wow that opened a location in Noblesville in June, was founded in 2007 and started giving grants in 2015.

“We wanted to do something where we were giving back on a more regular, frequent basis rather than kind of waiting for a disaster to happen or something and doing emergency response that way,” said Erin Askeland, a member of the foundation’s board of directors.

The foundation gives out 15 to 20 grants a month, averaging $1,100 per grant.

The nonprofit does not provide funding for preventative care, focusing instead on dogs that need life-saving measures. Since they have many applicants, Askeland said the nonprofit uses a matrix to determine who gets a grant. The board looks at overall need, cost, other measures the owners of the dog have tried, potential outcome, whether it’s common for the breed and how they can best spread their funds across the country.

The foundation provides funding for dogs across North America, not just in Indiana. The office for the nonprofit is in Colorado.

Camp Bow Wow is the dog day care franchise associated with the foundation. It started in 2000, before the foundation was formed. Camp Bow Wow has 214 locations nationally, and hosts fundraisers to raise money for the foundation.

Askeland said the foundation’s mission is to support dogs who need a little extra help.

“This mission is really near and dear to my heart just because I’ve seen all of those ends of it and I’ve been in tough spots myself, too. I think we all have at some point in life,” she said. “So (we do) anything we can do to give back to our dog-loving communities where people are really just trying to do the best they can for their pets.”

For more information, visit bowwowbuddies.com.