Our Pet Safekeeping Program cares for pets of people who are experiencing difficult times in their lives. This can include those fleeing family violence, or pet owners who face a sudden crisis in their lives such as emergency hospitalization, or loss of a home through fire or a natural disaster. At times like this, pet owners often won’t focus on their own well-being until their animals are taken care of, and their predicament usually comes on short notice.
When this happens, our One Family Welfare team must make quick decisions to accept the pets into our program, and they must find a caretaker for the animals on very short notice. This is why our team relies heavily on our partners within the animal welfare system. A mixed-breed dog named Wilder who is deaf, along with another dog and a cat from his home, recently benefited from these relationships.
In Wilder’s case, his owner was admitted to an Edmonton hospital, leaving the three animals behind in the home. A social worker at the hospital called our team to apply to get the animals admitted into the Pet Safekeeping Program. In the meantime, the trio of critters was picked up by officers from the Edmonton Animal Care and Control Centre (ACCC) to ensure they were not left alone for very long. ACCC cared for the animals for several days on our behalf until our team could arrange caretaking.
Wilder and the other two pets stayed in our program for 21 days where we ensured their needs were met, including necessary veterinary care. Unfortunately, the owner could no longer care for the animals and they were eventually surrendered to us.
Our focus then turned to finding the animals new homes, and our One Family Welfare team reached out to our partners once again to see which shelter might have space for them. Shelters are often at capacity so we are always grateful when an animal welfare group can help us. This time GEARS Rescue was able to take in the pets and find them all safe and loving homes. In Wilder’s case, his new family had experience with a deaf dog making the new relationship a perfect fit.
Pets are often left in precarious situations for reasons that are no fault of the owner, and we do our best to ensure these animals can remain with their people once the crisis situation is alleviated. However, when that’s not possible, Alberta’s animal welfare system is there to ensure the pets are given every opportunity to live their best lives. We could not do what we do without the help of many groups across the province.
