DIDSBURY - The Wild Rose Humane Society (WRHS) shelter is looking at expanding to include dogs.
The shelter, which is located in Didsbury, has been operating for about a year and has to date been exclusively for cats.
Mark Fournier, Wild Rose Humane Society treasurer, appeared at Didsbury council at the recent Policies and Priorities meeting to give a presentation to council and staff.
Fournier said the shelter is strictly run by volunteers and is community driven. He said they would like to add dogs to the mix "sooner rather than later."
"Essentially what we're doing is making sure there are no more homeless pets," Fournier told council. "We're a non-kill shelter. So animals that come to our shelter will leave our shelter. That's something we pride ourselves on."
Fournier said they also want to educate residents about good pet care and find every animal a home.
"Right now we're just looking at cats and cats alone," he said.
Fournier told the Gazette that the meetings so far with the different municipalities in the area have gone well.
"Our area goes from Innisfail down to Airdrie," he said. "We've been approaching all the municipalities to let them know who we are and what we've been doing and to come up with a plan to work with them going into the future."
Fournier said they would like to work with the different communities on a partnership basis.
"We'd like to build future projects and future dog capacity around the contracts we're getting so we have a good sustainable model going into the future," he said.
Fournier said they have the infrastructure right now at the shelter for dogs.
"Dogs are, obviously, a lot more work than cats are," he said. "What we need to do is make sure we have the manpower in place to not just take it in a one-off basis, but make sure we can work with both the communities and different community members to accept dogs on a continuous basis."
Fournier said they've been talking with other animal shelters in Alberta to find out how they've been funded and what some of their best practices are.
WRHS is operated mainly through grants, casino money and donations, said Fournier.
"We did receive a very generous loan from the Town of Didsbury ($50,000), so we've been successfully paying that off over the past couple years," he said. "That gave us a good base and seed money for the building.
"Through programs like casinos, which we do every couple of years, the Community Facility Enhancement Program, we got some money from them. Airdrie Rotary has been very generous and gave us $10,000 for a security system. So with those grants we've been building it together."
Fournier said the actual construction of the shelter was done by volunteers in the community.
He added that they have no problem getting volunteers to help with the pets.
"As soon as you say you need help with dogs people come out of the woodwork," he said. "What we need is someone who's at the shelter on a permanent, part-time basis. What part-time looks like depends on the type of needs we're going to be filling in the different communities.
"Rather than us just randomly coming up with an idea, we want to go to the municipalities first and say, 'how can we help' and then build up from there."
CAT ADOPTION DAY
The Wild Rose Humane Society will be hosting a cat adoption day on July 27 at the shelter.
"We currently have nine cats and 11 kittens that are looking for their forever home," said Fournier. "To help find these loving animals a family, the Wild Rose Humane Society will be holding an open house and inviting people to come in to see if the cats would be a good fit for you and your family as you consider them for adoption."
The shelter is located at #13 Co-op Road in Didsbury. For more information email Fournier at [email protected] or visit its website at wildrosehumane.ca.
