The woman entered our shelter with her beloved dog, which she was unavoidably about to surrender. "You won’t put him down will you? How long 'til you kill him?" she asked worriedly.

It is a common misconception that the BCSPCA Shuswap Shelter is a place of last resort, where we routinely put animals down. Our mandate is to re-home as many animals as possible, and in the right home for each animal, also. To do that, we hold adopt-a-thons, volunteers take the cats to the malls for viewing, others walk the dogs downtown with special SPCA "Adopt Me" jackets, with the help of community sponsors we advertise the available animals in local newspapers, and we transfer animals to other B.C. shelters or approved rescue groups where those animals might be more readily adopted. We spay/neuter all animals before they are adopted.

We are not dog control. We do not go out to pick up the wandering dog nor the barking or annoying dog. We also do not trap cats. We do investigate cruelty complaints. We do have a lost and found for the public. We do take in the homeless, lost, hurt and abused. We provide food, shelter, medical treatment and love while they’re with us.

Our dogs have indoor/outdoor runs and get regular play time in our fenced yards. We have terrific volunteers who also spend time bathing and/or grooming, walking and playing with the dogs. If a dog requires behavioural training we do everything possible to ensure that he receives it, through dedicated volunteers fostering the dog and through committed and experienced staff working with him.

Our long term cats have an indoor/outdoor room that holds 15. Unfortunately the rest of the kitties are in cages, but these cages are of a sufficient size that the cats can stretch and play, and we try to provide all our felines with "window views" so life isn’t too boring for them. We also have volunteers who come in and spend time grooming, cuddling and loving them. It is no easy task to care for and love upwards of 100 cats and kittens in a shelter with the capacity for only 45, and we are always in need of more volunteers.

All of this takes money! We are a non-profit society and we rely on the generosity of the public. Without you there would be no shelter, here. What would happen to the hundreds and hundreds of animals that we take in every year, if the public didn’t provide us with funding to feed, house, medicate and spay/neuter them? Those animals would be wandering the streets and foraging in garbage cans. They would be unvaccinated and not spayed/neutered, so they might be infecting your family pets and they would be breeding and dying in your neighbourhoods.

All of this also takes volunteers! The Shuswap shelter is "bare-bone staffed". One staff member for 4 hours a day to clean, feed, medicate and love the over 100 cats (especially during kitten season) and one staff member for 4 hours a day to clean, feed, medicate and love upwards of 20 dogs a day. Time that must also include laundry (mounds of it), dishes, general shelter cleaning, answering the telephone, receiving surrendered animals, and processing adoptions. We could not operate the shelter with this level of staffing, if it were not for the volunteers. Please consider helping us. Contact us to find out how you can help.