Hearts & Smiles is all about raising money for two of our biggest veterinary costs - which are heartworm treatment and dentals.

Heartworm treatment costs $750 for a small to medium sized dog and we have helped many heartworm positive dogs this year.

We have spent over $15,000 so far in 2025 on dental surgeries. The more money we raise, the more older pets we can help.

Keep scrolling to see our special shelter pets whose healthy hearts and beautiful smiles are possible because of your donations.

Our shelter is located in a rural part of Hillsborough County, near the border of Polk County, Florida. We try to take as many owner relinquished pets as we can so that we can keep them out of the county municipal shelters. We also pull high-risk animals from county shelters that are not available for adoption to the general public due to health or temperament. Because of this, we often intake senior pets in desperate need of dental care as well as heartworm positive dogs. Our shelter is 100% donation based so we cannot help these pets without the help of our supporters in the community.

Dental disease in cats and dogs starts off with plaque then leads to a bacterial infection and progresses to a point that the pet stops eating and the bacteria from the mouth spreads through the body causing heart problems and damage to other organs. Dental treatment can be costly and we work hard to fundraise for our cats and dogs in need of this type of veterinary care. Dental surgery often costs between $1000 and $1800 per pet.

Heartworm disease is a serious and potentially fatal disease caused by foot-long worms that live in the heart, lungs and associated blood vessels of affected pets, causing severe lung disease, heart failure and damage to other organs in the body. This disease is so easily preventable and all of our shelter pets are given monthly heartworm and flea prevention. Our cost for monthly prevention averages $20 per pet per month. We generally house between 45 and 50 dogs at a time so our monthly prevention cost often exceeds $1,000 per month. Heartworm treatment costs around $750 for a small to medium sized dog and the process takes many months. We sometimes decide to do the “slow-kill” method of treatment which is a combination of heartworm prevention and antibiotics. This process is less costly and less invasive, but can take a much longer time to get negative results on a heartworm test.