The Animal Retreat, formerly Meridian Canine Rescue, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Subscriber Hub payments are not tax deductible
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The Animal Retreat, formerly Meridian Canine Rescue, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that has been serving the Treasure Valley in Idaho since 2008. We moved to Emmett in 2024 in order to expand our capacity to help more at-risk animals who urgently need placement and specialized care.
12/23/2025
Our Giving for Paws campaign is a success thanks to all our local partners that host a Christmas tree for us. It is a true partnership as we also promote these local businesses so our followers also visit them and hopefully they gain new customers! We want to thank petwantsmeridian for hosting a tree for us again this year!
They provide small batches of fresh dog food, treats, toys and so much more! Go and check them out and check our ornaments our dogs would love their products too!
12/22/2025
🎄🎁12 Days of Christmas Day #5 🐶🎅
Resident dog Gracie 🩷
A permanent foster due to her complex behavioral and medical issues, Gracie has been lovingly cared for by our organization since 2016. Gracie has a condition called canine megaesophagus, which affects her ability to eat and drink. She is on a well-managed routine now that enables her to maintain a healthy weight and avoid most of the typical side effects related to this condition. As of spring 2025, Gracie is also suffering from a complete cruciate rupture, which was mostly repaired this past fall.
Gracie is a big fan of plush toys and tennis balls. She enjoys morning naps right after breakfast, and she’s a total snuggler with her fosters.
Thank you to her foster moms that go above and beyond for her and to all of you for supporting her care 🙏🏻 you can see her enjoying the farm, hikes and also during her surgery 🩷
12/21/2025
Our volunteers and visiting rescue dog, Vinny, are hard at work wrapping presents for donations at the Boise Towne Square mall today. Stop by to get a present wrapped or just to pet Vinny.
12/21/2025
Pepper is moping around this morning. Usually, he gets to start his day with a few hours outside. He loves loves loves being outside.
But today, it’s rainy, cold, and muddy. And so we cut his first outing a little short. He’s been getting a bit stiff in his (old) age, and while he loves the cold, it doesn’t really love him back like it used to. So he’s stuck inside watching breakfast preparations in the miserable cozy, dry warmth.
Sorry, Pep.
12/21/2025
🎄🎁12 Days of Christmas day #4🐶
We want to showcase our resident dogs 🩷 When an animal joins us, we commit to caring for them for as long as they need. Sometimes, that can take a while, and we occasionally have a dog or two who is not well suited to suburban life. Permanent or temporary, all residents receive the same level of care, attention, and training from our team.
We have had several residents in the lifetime of our organization, they were loved and well taken care of. We have protocols in place to measure their quality of life with us so they are safe and enjoy their life with us. We would like to remember two residents that crossed the rainbow bridge in the past years. They left a big hole in our hearts and we are sure you remember them as well.
We at least know that thanks to all your support we were able to provide them a second chance 🩷
Until we meet again Levi and Kip 🌈🩷
12/20/2025
Turn Holiday Stress into Holiday Kindness 🎄🐾🎁
We continue the tradition to have our tables at the Boise Towne Square (next to T-mobile) this Sunday December 21th, from 11-6pm. Bring all your gifts or do all your shopping at the mall and for a donation you can get them all wrapped thanks to our wonderful expert in gift wrapping volunteers. We have the best gift-wrapped paper, ribbons and bows. All the funds raised this Sunday will go to pay our overdue vet bill from the year. We hope we can make this happen. Please share this post with all your friends and family, it takes a village 🐾
🐰
12/18/2025
Thank you for ordering our 2026 mini calendars(fridge magnets). It was so fun to print and work on your super cute pets and family pics! As you know 100% of the proceeds goes to the rescue and we mail it to you. Price is $25 (plus $5 for shipping costs). Perfect gift for the holidays. If you want to arrive for Christmas time, the last day to order is tomorrow Friday 12/19. Orders submitted before that will arrive after New Years.
You can also order our regular photo magnets at our product store. All proceeds goes to the animals, our credit card is at max covering our expenses so any orders are greatly appreciated!
*Remember to fill the form below the product description where you can upload your pictures and then you can continue with the payment and checkout! https://www.animalretreat.org/product-store
12/17/2025
🎁🎄🎅12 Days of Christmas Day #3 🎄🎄
Our animals can stay here as long as they need to be until they find a forever home. We provide a low stress environment at our farm (thanks to your support!). We have dogs with different personalities and behavioral issues and sometimes we don't understand how some of our dogs are not adopted. This Day #3 we want to show our Copper, he doesn't have any current adoption applications and the few he got, they never followed through. Could you help us this Christmas sharing Copper's story to your friends and family? We know there is a home for him, he is 2 yrs old with a lot of energy, good with other dogs (no cats unfortunately) and could do good with older children. You can see how cute he is. 🐾
You can learn more here: https://www.animalretreat.org/adoptable-animals
12/15/2025
These frosty mornings have been so quiet and peaceful. Copper loves meandering walks through the pasture, collecting scent tokens from visitors in the night. He is patiently waiting for a family to choose him, and until then, he’s enjoying time spent with his friends during walks, training, and especially playtime.
Learn more about adopting Copper on our website animalretreat.org 🐶
12/14/2025
🎁🎄🎅12 Days of Christmas Day #2 🎄🎄
We want to celebrate our local partners: local businesses that have offered their venue to host fundraisers, food drives, events and so much more. We couldn’t accomplish our mission without them. This holiday season we have our Giving for Paws fundraiser, partnering with 12 local businesses that are hosting a Christmas tree filled with ornaments that have our wish list and the best pics of our dogs and bunnies! Please visit them and show them some support:
Bark n' Purr
Jak*s Place - Nampa
Idaho Running Company
Good Apple Taphouse
SalonCentric - Meridian
Pet Supplies Plus
Earthwise Pets
KidStrong (Meridian & Boise)
Pet Wants Meridian
WORK Meridian
PetIQ
Clubhound
12/12/2025
🎁🐾 12 Days of Christmas 🎄☃️
Day 1
Today we’re kicking off our 12 Days of Christmas by celebrating YOU — the community that built this organization and continues to sustain it with your support, compassion, and love.
We became a nonprofit in 2008, and ever since, we’ve grown right alongside the needs of the Treasure Valley. What began as Animal Control for the City of Meridian evolved into a private rescue… and then, in 2017, into something even more intentional.
We realized that so many shelters and rescues were missing a crucial piece: behavior support and enrichment. Dogs who struggled weren’t getting the help they needed — and too many were waiting, forgotten, or misunderstood. So we committed to learning more, building better protocols, and focusing our work on the dogs who need us the most:
✨ The dogs who wait.
✨ The dogs who don’t know how to live in a home yet.
✨ The dogs who’ve been abandoned, overlooked, or passed from place to place.
✨ The dogs whose families haven’t found them… yet.
We step up for those dogs. And we stay committed to them — for as long as it takes. Sometimes that journey is long, and always it takes hard work, but we believe in dogs like Katara and Copper. Dogs who have spent their whole young lives bouncing between homes and rescues, who simply need the right support to finally have a chance at happiness.
Our programs are designed for the most at-risk dogs in our community. We may be small, but our mission is strong:
give each dog the individualized care, training, and time they need to heal, grow, and thrive.
They can stay with us for as long as they need — and we will continue to advocate for them every step of the way. Because their lives matter.
👉 Watch our teaser video today, and please like and share our page.
We need this whole community standing with us — because the work we do truly happens together.
12/10/2025
Are you looking for last minute Christmas gift ideas? Look no further for your dog loving friends and family. Christian Bachik is donating his time and ALL the proceeds to us for these amazing pet portraits. Get them just in time for the holidays and if you want them put onto something fun you still have time with Vista Print or even Walmart. Please support our Christmas fundraiser and order your pet portrait today. Just message us and we can accept Venmo, Paypal or online. We just need to know it is for the pet portrait and we will keep track of all the orders for Christian so he can just do the amazing work of getting you a pet portrait.
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Meridian Canine Rescue is a non-profit, no kill canine rescue dedicated to giving homeless and owner surrendered dogs a second chance. Too often shelter animals are not given the time to find new families and guardians because of overcrowding. It is our goal to reduce the number of homeless and owner surrendered dogs in shelters, both locally and regionally, without the need for euthanasia.
Our first step to meeting this goal is to act as a rescue. We provide an alternative to kill shelters; where guardians can surrender their pets without fear of euthanasia. We also continue to develop relationships with overcrowded shelters so that dogs under threat of euthanasia can be transferred to our facility and have more time to find their forever homes.
Secondly, we serve as a resource and educator to the public. Through our relationships with dog trainers, the pet industry, and the veterinary community, we can educate and provide resources to help guardians find ways to keep their family members at home and out of the shelter system. We also work to educate potential adopters to ensure that they are well prepared for dog guardianship prior to adoption.
Finally, through our various volunteer programs and community outreach activities we are able spread awareness to the plight of pet overpopulation and encourage more individuals to choose adoption.
