BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — A new animal rescue nonprofit in Brevard County is hoping a little yoga with dogs will go a long way towards helping the communities it serves get back to normal.

Friends of Freddy Dog Rescue wants to keep people with their pets and find new homes for dogs without one. In order to do that, they need money, which they're collecting through donations and fundraisers like hosting yoga class.

Friends of Freddy vice-president Denise Dabrowski-Buchanan says the new rescue was on the right track until COVID-19 sent Florida into lockdown.

“The quarantine happened and people needed more help because they lost their jobs,” Dabrowski-Buchanan said.

With the community not being able to come to events, the group reached out to them via virtual fundraisers.

“We were doing OK, paying all our vet bills and everything with fundraising and money in the bank, then realized the bank account was going down really quickly,” Dabrowski-Buchanan explains.

During the quarantine, she says shelters saw more adoptions. She hopes those people who adopted during that period keep their new pets once life returns to normal.

“The big fear is when everybody goes back to work these dogs that have separation anxiety or went from families being with them 24/7, now the kids are going back to school and parents going back to work and the dog is going to be by themselves,” she said.

Rescue Foster Breanna Leininger brought in a puppy to get adoption ready during the quarantine. But when that didn't go as planned, she ended up adopting the foster.

“It's a 'foster fail' because we thought we'd take her in, get her where she needs to be with training and vet, but then we fell in love and then decided that she's ours,” Leininger laughs.

The group says they're always looking for foster homes to get dogs ready for their "fur-ever homes," but that's just one way community members can support their efforts. Others include taking a dog yoga class or even creating gift baskets for raffle giveaways.

During the quarantine they were able to pull 10 dogs out of shelters and into foster homes. Currently, they are in need of at least 10 more fosters. Learn more at https://friendsoffreddydogrescue.com.