Blaze, a two-year-old male, was one of the two cats lost when the Southern Alberta Humane Society's intake house burned down.--SUBMITTED PHOTO
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
It is usually the Southern Alberta Humane Society providing help for animals in need, but it now needs help from Hatters more than ever.
The SAHS lost its animal intake home to a fire on Oct. 28. President De Seaton says the intake home could hold up to 15 cats at a time but she said there were only two cats in the home at the time who unfortunately passed in the fire. She says the humane society will be starting a GoFundMe to help re-coup some of the losses but no money will make up for the cats lost.
“We are a self-funded group, we are all 100% volunteers and we just do what we can, we raise funds every month so this is a huge loss for us,” Seaton said. “Not only that, the cats are the part that matter the most to us, that we lost those two cats. We’re just sick about it.”
Seaton was notified of the fire by a phone call and she said she was heartbroken once she heard.
“I was shocked and then heartbroken for the cats,” Seaton said. “We didn’t even care about the stuff, it didn’t even come into a thought until a few days later like, ‘we just lost everything.'”
The two cats, an 11-year-old female named Squeekers and a two-year-old male named Blaze, were both owner relinquished cats who could not care for them or did not want them anymore. The cats were not the only losses as all of the humane society’s supplies and its large stock of food donated by Blue Buffalo were destroyed in the fire.
“It basically took everything away,” Seaton said. The GoFundMe page will be posted on the humane society’s social media pages for anyone interested in making a donation. Seaton says as appreciated as they are, there is no good in donating food or any physical items as they simply don’t have the space right now.
“We want to get it out there so people know what’s going on because we’re going to be limited now to what we can do for a while,” Seaton said.
For now, they will only be able to take in animals if they have a foster home set up beforehand, and she says they are really short on potential fosters. If a monetary donation isn’t accessible, Seaton says they are always welcoming foster homes or volunteers to help the humane society with normal fundraising activities.
Before the fire, SAHS had started a Christmas silent auction running from Dec. 6-12. There is also a Christmas 50/50 raffle, with tickets available on the SAHS website, to be drawn on Dec. 21 to help raise funds to pay for vet trips.
Seaton says all money they fundraise normally goes toward paying those vet bills. In the two years it has been running, the humane society has spent $86,000 at the vet.
“Every month we raise money,” Seaton said. “It sounds awful but we don’t want to cash in on this tragedy but we do need help and this is our only way, which is to get it out there.”
