Pet fosters, adopters needed as Calgary animal shelters reach capacity

The City of Calgary says animal welfare organizations are in crisis and are pleading with people to take action to help ease pressure on the animal care system.

The Calgary Humane Society (CHS) and Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society (AARCS) are at capacity.

CHS seized over 100 animals from a home in early June and has a massive backlog of people trying to surrender their pets.

Meanwhile, AARCS is dealing with an outbreak of distemper in dogs and cannot shelter any more cats.

The City of Calgary’s Animal Services says it’s overwhelmed with the number of stray animals and it continues to get more and more calls for strays.

The City adds pet shelters, humane societies and rescue shelters in Calgary and the surrounding area are at their limits, and have a list of things you can do to help:

If you lose your pet:

• Ensure your pet is licensed to help The City of Calgary reunite you (the first ride home is a benefit of your licence).
• Have additional identification for your pet (vanity tags, microchip or tattoo).
• Double check that your address and phone numbers are current under your pet’s licence or identification.
• Look for your pet if it is lost; check with neighbourhood veterinary clinics, on calgary.ca, social media groups for postings of local found pets (The City of Calgary Animal Services group on Facebook), and consider lost pet posters.

Avoiding shelters:

• Please consider not surrendering your pet if not absolutely necessary:
  • Try to work through issues or ask friends and family for help.
  • Consider food assistance resources including AARCS Pet Food Bank and Parachutes for Pets.
• If you are having behavioural issues (i.e.: chewing on household items, food bowl guarding, barking, reactivity to other animals) seek help through online resources or a local pet trainer.
• Make sure your yard is in good condition and secure, and do not leave your pets unsupervised in your yard.
• Keep your cats indoors, they do not need to go outside unless you have a cat run or is supervised.
• Do not drop off healthy stray animals found in your neighbourhood at this time (a temporary measure to ensure space is available for distressed or injured animals).
• If you find a healthy pet roaming, please leave them or post on social media sites such as YYC Pet Recovery, Calgary Dogs, and/or Lost Dogs, Cats & Pets.
• If you find a stray cat or dog that is injured or in distress, call 311 or take it to a veterinary clinic.

Adopt, foster or donate:

• Consider adopting a pet to make room for those in need. For June, AARCS and CHS have initiated ‘choose your own fee’ adoption events.
• If you can’t adopt, please consider fostering an animal for one of the many animal welfare agencies in the city (AARCS and CHS are accepting new foster families as are other rescue organizations in Calgary). This gives a cat or dog the chance to be outside of the shelter environment while waiting to be adopted.
• If you can, please donate to the Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society, Calgary Humane Society, or MEOW Foundation.

The City adds it’s temporarily suspending its Cat Trap program and will re-instate it after the animal crisis is over. Calgary is also temporarily reinstating dog adoptions soon (by appointment only).

More information on how to make appointments will be made available at calgary.ca/pets.