Surrendering Animals
The Saskatoon SPCA is committed to providing exceptional care and support to thousands of animals each year. As a not-for-profit organization dedicated to animal welfare, we have adopted progressive sheltering practices, including Managed Intake protocols, to optimize the surrender process and ensure that every pet receives the care and attention they need.
Why Managed Intake is Important
Managed Intake is a crucial approach for animal shelters like the Saskatoon SPCA, offering significant benefits to both the animals and the community. This strategy is centered around scheduling appointments for pet surrenders, allowing the shelter to better manage its resources and ensure that each animal receives the attention and care they deserve. Here’s why Managed Intake is so important:
1. Reduces Shelter Overcrowding: By controlling the number of animals entering the shelter at any given time, Managed Intake helps prevent overcrowding. This is vital for maintaining a healthy and stress-free environment for the animals. Overcrowded shelters can lead to increased stress for the animals, which in turn can cause health and behavioral issues.
2. Ensures Individualized Care: With Managed Intake, each animal gets the necessary time and attention from the shelter staff. This allows for a thorough assessment of the animal's health and behavior, which is critical for matching pets with the right adoptive families and addressing any medical or behavioral issues early on.
3. Encourages Responsible Pet Ownership: The process encourages pet owners to think carefully about the decision to surrender their pet. During the intake appointment, shelter staff can discuss alternatives to surrender, such as behavioral training or medical resources, and educate pet owners on responsible pet ownership practices.
4. Better Resource Allocation: Managed Intake allows shelters to allocate their resources more effectively. Knowing the number of animals coming in helps with planning and ensures that the shelter has the necessary space, staff, and medical resources available. This leads to better care for the animals and more efficient use of donations and funding.
5. Community Engagement and Support: By managing intake, the shelter can engage more effectively with the community. This approach provides an opportunity to educate the public about pet overpopulation issues, the importance of spaying and neutering, and how the community can support the shelter through adoptions, fostering, and donations.
6. Improved Outcomes for Animals: Ultimately, Managed Intake leads to better outcomes for animals. It reduces the length of stay in the shelter by ensuring that animals are healthy and behaviorally sound before being made available for adoption. This not only improves the quality of life for the animals while in the shelter but also increases their chances of finding a permanent home.
Managed Intake reflects the Saskatoon SPCA's commitment to animal welfare and community responsibility. It highlights the shelter's proactive approach to managing pet populations, educating the public, and ensuring that every animal receives the best possible care and the opportunity for a happy, healthy life in a loving home.
Before Surrendering Your Pet
We understand that sometimes rehoming a pet is the only option. However, we urge you to explore all avenues before considering surrender. This includes reaching out to rescue groups, using platforms like Adopt-a-Pet.com, and ensuring your pet is spayed or neutered to reduce the number of unwanted animals in our community. Surrendering a pet should be a last resort, due to our challenges with high demand and limited resources.
Our Commitment to Animal Welfare
The Saskatoon SPCA practices what we preach when it comes to animal welfare. Remove sentence (not technically accurate). Our shelter houses animals for adoption, focusing on providing them with their Five Domains of Animal Welfare: 1) nutrition, 2) environment, 3) health, 4) behavior, and 5) mental state.
How We Determine Our Capacity for Care
Our shelter operates under the principle of Capacity for Care, ensuring all animals' needs are met, from appropriate housing and medical resources to staff and adoption-driven capacity. This approach helps us maintain an optimal number of animals, preventing the stress and health issues that can arise in overcrowded shelters.
Encouraging Responsible Pet Ownership
At the Saskatoon SPCA, we believe in finding good homes for our animals while educating adopters and removing barriers to adoptions. Our Managed Intake/Admissions policy is one of the key strategies to keep animals from entering the shelter unnecessarily. We also focus on population management, open adoptions, and pathway planning to ensure the best outcomes for all animals under our care.
Conclusion
Adopting from the Saskatoon SPCA means contributing to a larger effort of responsible pet ownership and animal welfare. We prepare our newly adopted pets and their families for success, emphasizing the importance of wellness for every pet. By embracing managed intake and Capacity for Care, we strive to provide the highest level of care for animals, ensuring they are placed in loving and suitable homes.