people need to understand that public shelters like the SPCA and Animal Control facilities were not and are not set up to provide homeless animals with long term care. nor should they be because a kennel environment is not appropriate for an animal to live in indefinitely. for short term housing they work pretty well, they keep the animals safe, warm, dry, and well cared for until a permanent home can be found. but to keep an unadoptable animal confined for years upon years, waiting and waiting with no home in sight? well THAT would be very unkind.
when I set up saints it was specifically designed to provide long term care..the goal is always adoption but that doesn't always happen so we have to be set up to provide appropriate long term housing where they may very well spend the rest of their lives.
I have heard the "the shelters dump their unadoptable animals on saints..." comments. give me a break, the shelters are doing what they are supposed to be doing, seeking out alternative, responsible, compassionate options rather than just arbitrarily euthanizing these unadoptable guys. I KNOW how hard it is to find these unadoptable shelter guys homes because I KNOW how hard it is to find our saints guys homes. the majority of them WILL spend the rest of their lives here. NO ONE is banging down our doors to actually adopt them.
saints exists to catch the senior, the sick, the infirm, the ones with a screw or two loose who fall thru the cracks of the mainstream sheltering mandates. we fill in a gap of much needed care for senior and special needs homeless animals out there. we are a specialty facility that specializes in geriatric, palliative and long term shelter/foster care.
cuz here is the thing...specialized care requires specialized things..like specialized facilities, specialized equipment, specialized knowledge, skills, and expertise. we can take two old and wrecked dogs like capone and riley and put them on a specialized regime. suddenly they ain't so wrecked and old any more and trust me..it cost a fair amount of time, effort, knowledge AND money. but it is what we do...every single day. we minimize the unhappy effects of illness and aging. we are good at it.
there is a place in the world for all kinds of shelters, for all kinds of animal welfare. no one single place can meet all of the needs of all of the homeless animals out there. there needs to be a variety of animal services available to meet all of those needs.
saints is just one cog in the wheel of animal welfare in BC. we have a job to do that addresses a specific area of homeless animal needs. the spca's and animal control facilities address a different type of homeless animal's needs.
you cannot compare apples to oranges or bananas to kiwi fruit...they may all be fruits but they are not the same.
animal welfare is like that..we all have a very important yet different role to play in the animal welfare arena.
1:00 to 3ish would be good for me.