Women’s shelter, SPCA hosting Pet Walk

By Mo Cranker on November 13, 2018.

mcranker@medicinehatnews.com @MHNmocranker

Family Violence Prevention Month is underway and the Medicine Hat Women’s Shelter Society is hoping people remember that pets are part of the family.

The shelter is holding its fourth annual Pet Walk Saturday at 1 p.m. at Kin Coulee Park in conjunction with the Medicine Hat SPCA to raise awareness around pets being involved in family violence.

“This is our fourth time partnering with the SPCA and we’re asking people to come out and wear purple and put purple on their dogs,” said shelter executive director Natasha Carvalho. “We meet up at the toboggan hill as a group and do a quick loop around the park and we’re asking people to consider bringing things for the SPCA’s wish list.”

Carvalho says people are encouraged to wear purple to the walk and that people often forget that animals are impacted by family violence.

“They’re a part of the family and they feel it, too,” she said. “In situations where there’s family violence pets are impacted and sometimes people will stay in a bad situation because they don’t know what will happen to their pets if they leave.

“We want to acknowledge that these things happen so we’re just having a nice walk.”

The walk is one of many events being held by the shelter during Family Violence Prevention Month and Saturday’s route is just a short walk from the toboggan hill to a brick mural less than a kilometre away.

“It’s important for us to hold events like this and to get people talking,” said Carvalho. “It’s just a short walk for us, less than half of a kilometre likely, and we’ll stop at the mural to take some pictures as a group with our pets.”

Carvalho says there are services available locally to help families with pets in cases of domestic violence.

“We have a partnership with the SPCA,” she said. “If someone has a pet and is looking to come to our shelter and a pet is a barrier for that the SPCA will house the pets, provided they have the room.

“They’ll take the pet while the women and maybe children are with us and they’ll know the pets are safe and being looked after as well.”

For more information go to http://www.mhwss.ca

14
-13

Comments are closed.