Today the Oakville Humane Society has space for about 200 animals. These animals come to us because their owners can no longer care for them; because they are lost, abandoned or abused. The Pounds Act states that we must keep any incoming stray for a minimum of 72 hours not including the day the animal came in, Sundays or holidays. This is to allow the owner to claim his/her pet. The majority of our stray animals go back to their owners or are placed in new homes.
Throughout the years, the society has retained its primary mission of addressing animal welfare issues as well as providing food, shelter and care for the many stray and unwanted pets in our community. In addition, the society offers an increasingly wide range of support services including 24 hour emergency service, lost and found, animals for adoption, cruelty investigations, by-law enforcement, animal behaviour counselling, and wildlife rehabilitation.
The Oakville Humane Society is very committed to the community that it serves. We offer pet visits to health facilities, education in the schools and we participate in many community events.
Our funding comes from donors, special fund raising events, internally generated revenue and animal control contracts with the towns of Milton and Oakville. We received one provincial grant in 1994 which helped with our new renovations, but generally we receive no government funding other than our contracts. We are a private, non-profit, charitable organization.
One concern that every shelter faces is public perceptions. Often shelters are viewed as the place where animals go to die. Here at the Oakville Humane Society we are a "low-kill" facility. Our reasons for resorting to euthanasia are three fold. The first is aggression, the second is health which includes psychological problems and the final and most difficult, is overcrowding. We are proud to say that our euthanasia statistics, due to overcrowding, are about one percent. In order to minimize the need for euthanasia we try very hard to ensure that our animals are spayed or neutered and we educate people about responsible ownership. Through education, spay/neuter programs and assisting people to choose appropriate pets we hope to reduce the number of unwanted animals coming into the shelter.
In order to continue to offer these services and maintain the best possible care for our animals we need volunteer help. Volunteers are involved in every aspect of the shelter with the exception of Animal Control. We would not be able to provide wonderful care for our animals without you.