The Lakeland Humane Society (LHS) is so close to a new shelter, they can almost taste it.
For years, the local animal shelter has been scraping their pennies as they save up for a new $2 million facility to replace their current, aging shelter. On Saturday, Feb. 11, they will once again be turning to the community for donations through their annual Dawgs & Divas gala.
Every year, the shelter gets closer to their goal through the annual event, which acts as a fundraiser strictly for the construction of a new facility. Last year, the gala raised $11,000 through the silent auction alone, a number Lakeland Humane Society manager Cathy Olliffe-Webster hopes to go above and beyond.
“The pressure is on to have another really great year,” she said.
The event is celebrating six years, and will be taking on a winter wonderland theme: Pawprints in the Snow. On Feb. 11, animal lovers from across the region will flock to the Cold Lake Energy Centre to take part in the silent auction, dinner and dance, with Thea Neumann taking to the stage to perform jazz pieces from her album, Lady and the Tramps.
“It's our major fundraiser of the year, it's the one directed solely to fundraising for the shelter,” explained Olliffe-Webster. “This is our biggest event, and we really try and do the most fundraising we possibly can.”
She continued that building a new shelter is the most important project the Lakeland Humane Society has on the go, and this event is just one way of helping them reach their goal.
“We have been working towards building a new shelter for several years now,” she said. “The reason we are doing this is because our current facility is not only too small, it is also outdated.”
LHS has about 600 animals come through their doors annually, and are well over capacity right now. Currently, they are home to 17 dogs, with the proper kennels for only 12. The number of cats is nearly double the 22 proper kennels.
In these cases, the shelter uses what they have to give animals a home, but sometimes have to turn animals away due to spacing issues.
“People get angry with us sometimes, they'll say, ‘well what am I supposed to do,' and we just don't know what to tell them, because we just don't have the room,” Olliffe-Webster noted, adding the new facility would solve that problem, among others.
In addition to limited space, the shelter is also struggling to keep quarantined animals separated from the rest of the population, not to mention keeping people away from those animals who are sick, have lice or other diseases.
The issue, Olliffe-Webster explained, is when someone handles a dog with a disease; they can then transfer it to another animal in the shelter unknowingly, which can cause a serious problem.
In the past, some shelters have had to euthanize animals due to the spread of disease, something the local humane society would like to avoid.
“We don‘t want that to happen… and we have signs on the quarantine area, but people ignore it,” noted Olliffe-Webster.
Tickets for the gala are available at the Lakeland Humane Society, for more information or to donate call the shelter at 780-594-1896.
