Animal rescue almost done construction on new building

The inside of the Steinbach and Area Animal Rescue (SAAR) building is under construction right now. 

SAAR Vice President Graham Pollock says currently they are waiting on plumbing and hydro. 

“Our plumbing guys are coming in the next week probably to finish up the plumbing connections in the basement and hook them to the plumbing connections upstairs. Our electrician is waiting for hydro to bring the gas and the power to the building.” 

They were hopeful to have everything installed by early January, but Pollock says it’s more realistic now to expect the end of January. 

He says it’s been a long process, but the building will be incredible for the rescue.

“It's been worth the wait, and it will be wonderful once it's up and running.” 

They recently put out the call for volunteers, and so far they have gotten 48 people who have registered to volunteer in the new building. 

They aren’t sure how many days a week the building will be open. It depends on the availability of the volunteers, and how many people they will need to volunteer per day to operate. 

“Our original thoughts were maybe we're only going to be open three days a week, but with the number of volunteers that we've had apply, I think that we're probably in better shape than I thought." 

He says it’s great to see such a big community response, but they are still looking for more volunteers, 

Pollock describes the design of the building, and says they will have 3 rooms for healthy cats.  

“One will probably be primarily kittens, the other two will be kind of a mix maybe.” 

They also will have the quarantine room that will be strictly for cats coming in that need to quarantine.

Then they've got the dog area at the back, the first aid grooming room, and the basement. 

He says they are planning to have a boardroom in the basement for meetings, and they are also hoping to do their outreach and education programs out of the space. 

“And then we've got a ton of space for storage, so the basement is a blank canvas right now. We'll see what we need, but we've got lots of room.” 

Pollock notes this building is going to be a long-term holding facility.  

“We've made it that we're hopeful to turn the animals over to foster homes as quickly as we can, whether they're cats or dogs,” he says. “It's going to allow us to maybe not say no in every single circumstance, and be able to bring cats in where we've got a place to put them and keep them temporarily until we have a foster home open that's suitable and available.” 

He says they want to get them in through this building and into foster care as quickly as possible, so they have room to take in more animals, and because foster care is what is best for the animals. 

“They get socialized properly there, they are with people, maybe other animals, dogs or cats in the house."

 

With files from Dave Anthony

 

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