By Jessie Weisner (Twitter: @Jessie__Weisner)

ROAR Society closes doors to new animals

Jul 16, 2018 | 11:23 AM

The Rocky Organization for Animal Rescue (ROAR) has closed its doors to new animals due to an influx of intakes and a decrease in adoptions.

ROAR is a ‘no-kill’ shelter intent on reducing the use of euthanasia on homeless animals.

The only time an animal will be euthanized is if their quality of life is diminished due to injury, disease or serious behavioral problems that threatens the animal itself, other animals, or humans exposed to the animal.

Kiana Uhlmann, Shelter Manager at ROAR, says despite high demand, there’s no room left for new animals, unless absolutely desperate.

“We have more calls that keep coming in every day from the County and Town and owners in general looking to bring more animals into the shelter,” says Uhlmann. “We are legitimately out of space to do so.”

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The shelter closes its doors nearly every year during the spring and summer, because of what the shelter calls ‘kitten season.’

“This is a hard time of year when hordes of orphaned kittens, and pregnant mamas come into our care,” says ROAR. “It is a huge strain on the shelter physically and financially.”

However, Uhlmann says this year is coupled with a major decrease in adoptions.

“We usually are able to have a couple adoptions a week but we’ve been going several weeks in a row here without having any adoptions of either cats or dogs.”

The shelter typically has room for roughly four dogs and 30 cats, but Uhlmann says there’s eight dogs and 70 cats currently in their system.

“We are also starting to run out of food and litter for the cats because of the exorbitant population,” says Uhlmann. “We don’t seem to have as many people interested in fostering as we usually do which means we can’t move shelter animals out to bring in more strays that need it.”

ROAR has been taking active steps to increase adoptions and donations, setting up events at local pet stores, and increasing advertising on social media.

The foundation has even resorted to discounts to help move animals out of the shelter.

“There’s even certain types of animals that we’ve been cutting deals on to hopefully get them through a bit quicker,” says Uhlmann. “It just doesn’t seem to be working so far.”

For now, the foundation is focusing on the high number of animals in their care, and they’re in desperate need of donations.

“Were always looking for more donations to help,” says Uhlmann. “We need grain-free cat and kitten food, we need cat litter and of course monetary donations to cover dozens and dozens of medical bills that we have piling up.”

Visit ROAR’s website at http://www.roarsociety.ca/index.html for more information on adoptions, donations and volunteer opportunities.