Shelter officials look to USHS for financial assistance
Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bvwv/News/6706/
Thanks to the Humane Society of the United States, the Bella Vista Animal Shelter and local pet owners may be getting some muchneeded help soon. The shelter is applying for a grant to help families who are struggling to provide their pets with proper care.
The grant, ranging from $ 500 to $ 2, 000, is designed to help families keep their pets in these tough financial times by providing them with dog food, vaccinations and other things their fourlegged family members may need.
“ Dealing with a financial crisis is scary enough, ” said Stephanie Shain, director of outreach for Companion Animals at the Humane Society of the United States. “ We hope to ease the burden in some way for families by helping their local shelter help them keep their pet home and part of the family. ”
Dee Dee Knight with the Bella Vista Animal Shelter said organizers hope the grant will help keep pets with their families by getting the animals the food and medicine the families might not be able to afford.
Keeping pets with their families is one way to help alleviate the dog and cat population at the shelter, which is currently operating at its capacity of 150 animals, despite a recently completed renovation of the facility.
The four-year renovation added 14 dog runs and nine additional rooms to the shelter. The latest addition was Nibbles House. Finished in April, Nibbles House is named after a treeing Walker coonhound that came to the shelter late in life and helped during her time there by nurturing the puppies that came to the shelter. Nibbles House contains a kitten room, a cat room, a puppy area and indoor / outdoor dog runs, as well as a meet-and-greet area for potential adoptive pet owners.
Although the shelter’s $ 260, 700 renovation will help it to remain a safe haven for homeless pets in Bella Vista, the shelter is still looking for help from the community.
“ We are still doing fundraising to help with the expenses of the building. People can sponsor dog runs or rooms for $ 1, 000 each, ” Knight said. The tax-deductible donations will go toward helping feed and house dogs or cats that have been abandoned in Bella Vista.
The shelter will also host the second annual Wiener Dog Race at the Loch Lomond Dam ballpark in Bella Vista on Oct. 4 to raise money for animals waiting for a new home.