As part of a grant program offered by the Pedigree Foundation, Yellowknife’s SPCA will be receiving $10,000 to help run their operations.
For their third annual grant donation, The Pedigree Foundation once again chose ten different animal shelters across the country to receive a total of $100,000 to help support their programs that help improve dog adoption programs and to help end pet homelessness.
The Northwest Territories Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was among the ten chosen, and will now be receiving a $10,000 donation, despite initially only applying for $9k. Nicole Spencer, the Executive Director of the SPCA, shared what that money will be used for.
“We applied for the money to go towards three, in-shelter, spay/neuter clinics. So when we found out we got ten thousand we were really thrilled. So this will go towards the three clinics, and the idea is to get as many dogs and cats spayed and neutered as quickly as possible so that they can go into forever homes.”
Nicole explained that the NWT is currently seeing a shortage of trained and passionate vets who can provide spay and neuter services, so they are working on bringing vets up to the NWT from down south.
“The idea is to help alleviate the local vets’ stress of our animals, but also to get our animals taken care of as soon as possible so they don’t reproduce.”
In speaking on why Pedigree chose the SPCA for the grant, Debra Fair, the Executive Director of the Foundation, said that “what really resonated with us in their application was the fact that it looked at providing animal health and wellness clinics, and at a high volume level for unwell animals.
“We feel like that is a very important thing to do because that will improve health and adoption rates, and their application also talked about improving adoption rates from thirteen to twenty dogs per month, and we think having community partnerships with First Nations and other animal organizations, and the fact that they have active board members and volunteers speaks volumes to how you can have a big impact in your community.”
According to the State of Pet Homelessness Project, there are around 39,000 dogs in Canada that live in shelters and rescues, and approximately 21 percent of Canadian cats and dogs are currently homeless.
