Another pet project in Shelburne By Our Staff Fri. Feb 6 - 5:27 AM
An animal shelter society in Shelburne County is planning another pet adoption fair.
The group held one in November with a 100 per cent success rate and plans to do it again in the spring, volunteer Shelly Hipson said Monday.
"We don’t have a shelter facility so we took all of our cats and dogs out of foster care and went to the local firehall and set up," she said.
"By the end of the day, all of our animals were spoken for," with 11 cats and one dog headed for new families.
The Beulah Burman Memorial Animal Shelter Society actually has a shelter, but it sits empty because the organization found it too expensive to keep open, Ms. Hipson said.
"It takes quite a bit of money to open the doors of a shelter building."
The shelter society was formed in 1998 and negotiated a property lease with the provincial government. It opened a new two-storey building at 528 Sandy Point Rd. just outside the town of Shelburne in 2001.
But the shelter was used only for occasional emergencies and closed in October 2003 because it cost about $50,000 a year to run, she said.
It makes sense in a virtual world to have a virtual shelter, since people would rather find their pet on the Internet than drive to a shelter, said Ms. Hipson.
The group doesn’t euthanize any animals and has a network of foster families who have their feed and litter and vet bills paid for by the society. Those volunteers plan to bring their animals out to periodic adoption fairs.
"There is an abandonment problem" with cats in Shelburne County, Ms. Hipson said.
The society takes more than 120 cats into temporary care each year, compared with only about eight to 10 dogs.
In the last two years, the society has raised more than $22,000 and spent $19,000 of it on veterinary medical care, said Ms. Hipson.
Now society members would like to turn their attention to education, she said.
Rather than reopen a shelter, they’d like to be more proactive and offer low- or no-cost spay and neuter programs.
"It’s the way we have to go to prevent the numbers of unwanted animals from reaching our shelters," said Ms. Hipson.
Some pet owners want to do the right thing but they don’t have the money for such veterinary care, she said.
The society’s website is www.petprojects.ca.
( newsroom@herald.ca)
There is so much love and energy in the 'little groups' that have been leading the way to No Kill Nova Scotia. This is the same group that rescued Noah ... remember the sweet old guy last month? ( Unchaining Noah )
Actually right now they are trying to find a good home for another innocent bystander named Tucker, who is a great guy that has been left behind by his owner, who is going out west today ( are there really any new jobs left out there ?)
Four year old Tucker is neutered and is gentle with kids and other pets, including cats. He's crate trained, and his crate will go with him to his adopter.
Good dogs like Noah and Tucker are very lucky that these so called 'little groups' work so hard on their behalf. In my perfect fantasy world, someday we will have something here in NS like the Mayor's Alliance in New York - http://www.animalalliancenyc.org/
In seven short years, this non profit group created a public/private partnership of all the groups working on behalf of the animals. While they are not yet at their goal of No Kill New York, they have significantly lowered the percentage of healthy adoptable animals that are killed.
Can you just imagine the possibilities for us here in NS? If AC's were obligated to be on the life saving side of the fence? If resources were pooled? Can you just imagine the strength of such a voice for the animals?
M'gawd the possibilities are enough to make ya dizzy, eh?
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