Brandon’s Humane Society is looking for more good homes to adopt some of their dogs, not only because that’s the goal with the dogs they bring in but because more dogs could soon be on the way.
The shelter has said they typically host anywhere from 32 to 45 dogs, and are at the lower end right now. But with new litters on the way from northern communities, they believe they could shoot right up to the higher end of that range in no time.
“You get those places like Cross Lake and Garden Hill where people don’t have a way to get their animals out,” said Tracy Munn, shelter manager and executive director of the Brandon Humane Society. “If the animal has puppies or kittens, they don’t have any way to get them out of there because a lot of these communities are fly-in or boat-in and they don’t have any vets up there.”
Unfortunately, a rise in need for adoption is also fueled by an upward trend in dogs being returned. Recently, the Humane Society went through a stretch where they had to take in 11 dogs given up over the course of just three days. And that’s unfortunately consistent with how adoptions are trending across Canada.
“Some of the media students at Assiniboine College, this was probably two months ago, they did a really good job doing research talking about how, across Canada, adoptions had gone down,” Munn said. “And it’s insane how many people are surrendering animals, especially dogs.”
Munn believes there are a number of reasons for this, not least of which is the number of new “rescues” that are starting to crop up. Whether well intentioned or not, they may be creating more work for groups like the Humane Society.
“You get these rescues that pop up,” Munn explained. “I’m not talking about good, valid rescues that have integrity and knows what they’re doing. They pop up, call themselves a rescue, they go on and pluck animals out of certain spots so they can hold adoption events and get them out the door. That’s not what we want to see. Those kinds of people make our work more difficult because they will give out an animal to just about anybody without checking on stuff.”
Munn added that they can be very particular about to whom they give out dogs, but that’s for the health and safety of the animal and also to help ensure that they don’t simply see the dog returned in a short period of time.
