Ever since the Drumheller and District Humane Society came into existence, they have been working towards helping find homes for both cats and dogs in our area. They are one step closer to being able to help finding new homes for more dogs.
In an announcement last week, the Humane Society is moving forward on the development of dog kennels in their building in the Premier Industrial Park. Lindsay Rothman, President of the Drumheller and District Humane Society shares that there has been quite a bit of behind the scenes work to get to this point. “A lot of work and I can’t take credit for hardly any of it because it has been past boards, over many many years, and their vision to get us to where we are today. It included finding us this space and that was only possible because we were gifted from the Estate of Clifford and Eileen Ing. Fixing the outdoor dog runs, we had to get all of the fencing repaired, purchasing the kennel units inside (the building). There have been a lot of people that have worked really hard to get us here today, and we’re just carrying on with that legacy, with the next step.”
A big piece of the puzzle is the development of the kennels within the back bay portion of the Humane Society building. Rothman notes that they are not quite ready to accept dogs as of yet. “Construction has started, which is the room around the kennels. This was necessary as we needed temperature control.” The bay area does not have any heat or air conditioning in it so Rothman advises that this new building within the bay will have HVAC to manage the temperature, as well the building will provide a sound barrier between the dogs in the facility as well as the cats, which are housed in the front of the bay. “Behind the scenes, the hard work continues to develop the policies and procedures, do volunteer recruitment, get some fosters in place to have on stand by, all of that is going on behind the scenes as well.”
The new kennels within the new building inside the Humane Soceity.
Until this new kennel portion is up and running, the Humane Society is unable to house dogs and have to work with partners to help stray dogs find new homes, admits Rothman. “We are sadly not able to help dogs in our community right now. What we do is provide a resource list, give people an email list of other shelters in the area that they can reach out to. We will do courtesy posts on our social media and will help with different solutions that can be put into place to keep the dog in the home.”
On the other side of the coin, the Humane Society continues to help stray and surrendered cats to find their forever homes but Rothman admits they have seen a slowdown in adoptions. “Our adoptions have ground to a halt. Part of the problem is that we went through our ‘black cat’ phase, where we had over 50 percent of our residents being black cats. We have been successful getting some of those out the door but we have really seen the adoptions slow down. If you’re interested in adoption, come on down, meet these guys for yourself, and see who is a good fit because we have so many cats waiting for their next chapter.”
To find out more about the Drumheller and District Humane Society, visit their website. They continue to fundraise for the new kennels and are also operating a raffle to help with the fundraising efforts for the shelter and the new installation.
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