BANFF – The Town of Banff is struggling to find homes for abandoned or lost dogs not claimed by owners.
Officials say the municipality has an agreement with Bow Valley SPCA for animals to be turned over by municipal enforcement, but often the SPCA facility is full and cannot accept animals.
“Sometimes in the course of our duties our municipal enforcement seize an animal and in those cases we do sometimes struggle to secure a facility for them through the SPCA,” said Katherine Severson, director of protective services for the Town of Banff.
“This is an ongoing concern and we are working closely with the SPCA to identify alternatives for this challenge.”
There are two kennels in the basement of a Middle Springs building for dogs needing care for up to 72-hours, but Stan Andronyk, Banff’s manager of municipal enforcement, said it is not a secure facility.
“It’s not the best facility by far… We have the facility but we don’t have the ability to care for dogs longer than 72 hours, although I would prefer a little bit better facility for these animals,” he said.
“In a pinch we can keep animals there for two or three days, but it’s what do we do after that. It’s the adoption process, the fostering process that we weren’t involved in before and now we have been.”
In one case this year, a dog was without a home for approximately two weeks before a fostering solution was found.
The small, young, black and white dog without a collar, was found at the Shell gas station at the corner of Marten Street and Banff Avenue in September. Town of Banff staff looked after the dog the entire time.
“It involved having staff coming in to take care of the dog after hours and we had staff members taking the dog home for two or three days at a time, so it’s a problem that isn’t going away,” Andronyk said.
An organization dealing with fostering animals, other than the SPCA, eventually took the dog.
“They basically took the dog off our hands,” Andronyk said.
“The vet was involved in taking care of that dog. It had a few issues that needed to be corrected first, so we’re almost taking adoption into our own hands, so yes, we need a better solution.”
Andronyk said the Town is reviewing its agreement with the SPCA, noting he had a meeting with the organization’s executive team last week.
“Unfortunately, they don’t have a lot of space for animals so there’s not a lot of room to move on this … Bottom line, we’re still struggling a bit to find a full-time solution to where we can take the animals that we cannot find the owners for,” he said.
“That’s why these talks with the SPCA to at least have processes in place if they physically don’t have room for the animal, at least they can maybe assist us in next steps and help us move forward so we’re finding somewhere for the animals.”
In years past, a facility in the industrial compound used to temporarily house lost or abandoned animals has been decommissioned and demolished after it was deemed unsafe for human occupation, due in part to lead paint and asbestos.
That left the Banff Veterinary Services clinic without a home in the community where it would visit twice a week to provide vet services, medications, pet food and pet care items to the community, as well as veterinary care to stray animals brought in by municipal enforcement and unclaimed within 72 hours.
“That’s when the vet would check over the animal and would do any care needed,” Andronyk said.
“We were comfortable moving forward at that point and that’s when we would involve the SPCA to take over the care, but we could already say at that point it had been checked by the vet and we’d done our best to make sure the animal was healthy and safe to be cared for elsewhere.”
Andronyk said lost or abandoned dogs needing homes happens only a handful of times in a year.
If an animal has to be held for three or four days because the owner is coming to get them, he said that’s OK.
“I would say this year, it was three or four dogs we struggled to find homes for,” he said.
“It was the one that was two weeks, that was a long one. Other animals we were fortunate enough to deal with quicker, say three or four days.”
