Cleo’s Legacy is a 100% volunteer-run, foster-based 501(c)(3) rescue serving Greater Cincinnati and rural Kentucky.
Cleo’s Legacy is a 100% volunteer-run, foster-based 501(c)(3) rescue serving Greater Cincinnati and rural Kentucky.
It Started With Cleo. Then Bubba. Then Floyd. It Grew Into Something Bigger.
Cleo’s Legacy began long before there was paperwork behind the name.
What started as grassroots rescue work grew into something that needed a permanent future. In February 2024, Cleo’s Legacy officially became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, giving structure to a mission that was already underway.
Named in honor of Cleo, founder and Director Alex Siska’s soul dog, the organization was built around one belief:
The animals who are hardest to save should never be the easiest to give up on.
We started smal. Foster homes became our rescue. Bathrooms became quarantine rooms. Spare bedrooms became recovery spaces. Volunteers opened their homes to medical cases, seniors, abandoned animals, long-term shelter residents, and dogs needing extensive behavioral rehabilitation.
And we grew quickly.
Our Mission Grew, Too
In late 2024, Cleo’s Legacy joined forces with the rescue efforts of our Cat Director, Tammy Johnson, expanding our mission to include cats and some of the most vulnerable animals in rescue: orphaned and bottle-fed kittens.
Bottle babies require around-the-clock feeding, warmth, medical care, and someone willing to become their mother when they no longer have one. By coming together, we built a stronger foster network and expanded Cleo’s Legacy into the dog and cat rescue it is today.
In our first year as a nonprofit, 52 animals found homes through Cleo’s Legacy. In 2025, that number grew to 151 adoptions, and our network of fosters, volunteers, veterinary partners, trainers, adopters, and supporters continued to expand.
Rescue Is More Than Adoption Numbers
Our impact doesn’t end with the animals who officially enter Cleo’s Legacy.
We know we can’t bring every animal into foster care, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help.
Every year, as funding and resources allow, we help spay, neuter, and provide veterinary care for community animals whose families or caretakers need assistance. Sometimes saving a life means taking an animal into rescue. Other times, it means helping an animal stay healthy, safe, and loved in the home they already have.
Our goal has always been bigger than adoption numbers. It’s about strengthening animal welfare throughout the communities we serve and stepping in wherever we realistically can.
Along the way, our animals and our work have been featured by ABC World News Tonight with David Muir, The Dodo, Local 12, Fort Thomas Living, and other media outlets.
But behind every feature, we’re still the same grassroots rescue.
We have no paid staff and no traditional shelter. Volunteers bottle-feed kittens through the night, drive animals to medical appointments, work with scared and misunderstood dogs, clean crates, transport supplies, raise money, answer applications, and open their homes again and aga
Cleo’s Legacy was created to give underdogs another chance.
Our volunteers come from different backgrounds and walks of life, and many have found friendship, community, and a renewed sense of purpose through this work.
There is something powerful about earning the trust of a dog who was afraid of everyone. Watching a bottle-fed kitten finally begin to thrive. Sitting beside a senior who lost the only family they knew. Or watching an animal everyone else had given up on finally leave for home.
We give the underdogs a reason to keep going. And always, they give that right back to us.
Today, Cleo’s Legacy serves Northern Kentucky, Greater Cincinnati, and rural Kentucky, including communities where animal-welfare resources can be incredibly limited. From grassroots rescue work before we ever had nonprofit status, to becoming a 501(c)(3) in February 2024, expanding to save cats and bottle babies later that year, helping hundreds of animals, supporting community pets, and now working toward a Healing Village, one thing has never changed:
We show up for the underdogs.
It started with Cleo.
Every animal we save, every community pet we help, and every person who finds purpose beside us becomes part of her legacy.
As a foster-based rescue we ALWAYS need more open doors.
- Help out at one of our fundraising events
- Pass out flyers
- Doggy Day trips
- Volunteer at an adoption event
- Transport a dog in need
- Vet visits
- Bathe, walk, photograph shelter dogs
In our foster program, we provide all funds for vet bills, food and supplies while fostering. Fostering a dog is a wonderful way to help animals in need. By opening your home, you can provide them with a safe and loving environment while they wait for their furever home. Not only are you helping the dog, but you are also helping the rescue organization by freeing up space for more animals in need. Consider fostering a dog today and make a difference in their life.
Cleo’s Legacy dogs come vetted, UTD on vaccines, spayed/neutered. Click to meet your possible SOUL-DOG!
An anonymous donor is matching gifts for Phase A of Healing Village.
Your donation will help build a dedicated rescue and medical facility where homeless, injured, and special needs animals can heal, recover, and prepare for their forever homes.
Every dollar you give today will be matched, doubling your impact while matching funds remain.
Help us build Healing Village.
