HRM Business Parks -
By NS SPCA Staff
What a difference a year can make! Thanks to the support of our loyal band of dedicated volunteers and local businesses, 2009 at the Metro Shelter brought a year of much needed renovations and improvements to our building, increased adoptions and changes to our volunteer and foster programs.
Due in part to the renovations at the shelter, we were also able to improve nearly every aspect of animal care, enabling us to drastically improve our disease control measures, enabling the shelter to save not only money and resources, but more animals in the process.
The changes didn't happen overnight. It took nearly all of 2009 to implement some of the bigger changes, but the combination has led to a rejuvenated look and feel to almost all areas of the building. The response from the public and our volunteers has made all of the hard work by shelter staff and volunteers worth the effort.
Some of the bigger, more noticeable changes to the shelter are as follows:
• New cabinetry and a stainless steel countertop in our intake/examination area.
• Created two new cat adoption rooms with proper ventilation units that are no longer connected to the dog rooms. This has led to improved disease control practices and a great deal less stress for the cats.
• Self-contained isolation cat room.
• New hallway for adoption dogs to access the backyard exercise areas.
• New front desk/adoption area was opened up by knocking down walls and installing new windows and doors.
• New Meet and Greet room with windows and French doors. This was previously used as our cat adoption room. The room is now equipped with couches, chairs and a new flat panel TV, generously donated by one of our volunteers.
• All the walls in the main areas have been repaired and painted and new tile flooring installed throughout all main areas of the building.
• Transformed an under utilized and over crowded storage room into a proper cat intake room.
• Thanks to a grant from NS Power, we were able to replace and install high efficiency fluorescent lighting throughout the building.
The Meet and Greet room was one of the biggest advantages of the renovations. Not only did it give the shelter a proper dog temperament evaluation room for staff to use, it also gave members of the public a quiet "one on one" area to spend time getting to know an animal they are considering for adoption.
The shelter would like to thank everyone for their patience and support during the renovations. We would also like to thank everyone that helped by either donating the building materials or their time, especially Harold Porteous and his son Chris who completed the majority of the labor free of charge, which earned them the distinction of "Maritimers of the Week" on CTV.
We would also like to thank Capt. and Mrs. T.R. Stringer who generously supplied our Meet and Greet room with furniture, extra labor, materials and supplies to make the room as attractive and user friendly as it is now. Without their support and generosity we wouldn't have been able to accomplish all that we have.
Overall, the physical changes at the shelter combined with new policies and procedures relating to everything from disease control to adoption and improved customer service has led to increased adoptions, disease control and the ability to help even more animals then ever before. We are all extremely proud of the accomplishments made in 2009 at the Metro Shelter and hope to keep this momentum going in 2010!
2009 Adoption Numbers
Cats 873
Dogs 381
Rabbits 19
Ferrets 2
Lizards 1
Rats 5
Mice 1
Snakes 1
Birds 3
We adopted 184 more cats and 160 more dogs in 2009 than in 2008!
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