Oops-a-Dazy looking for community support

Times Reporter        

 

Oops-a-Dazy pet Rescue and Sanctuary Society is celebrating 10 years this August and is also looking for community support. The sanctuary has been struggling to get back in the red since the June flood. They finished the year with a $26,000 loss, and in January alone the vet bills were $50,000.

One of the fundraisers happening now is the sale of Coco Brooks pizza and goodies. A product form and order form can be found at www.oopsadazy.com. Orders can be placed until April 20 and pick up is for May 5. 

“We had a really tough year in 2013, we had just unprecedented numbers. We have a safekeeping program that has been historically used for very short-term crisis situations, often people fleeing domestic abuse, maybe short-term emergencies like a house fire, that sort of thing, temporary periods of homelessness,” said Christine Campbell, chairperson on the board of directors for the society. 

“Back in June, as everyone knows, there was massive, catastrophic flooding throughout the province and that led to over 100,000 people being evacuated and a lot of those people ended up not being able to go back to those homes.

“We had a very large influx of animals come in, in the first two days of the flood, we placed 75 dogs into foster homes. To date (March 28) we still have nine animals in safekeeping and several dozen more have just gone home over the last month or two. So we have had a very long term issue with our safekeeping program being completely full and then some.”

Campbell said typically there’s room for up to five animals in safekeeping and most of last year there were a couple dozen. Oops-a-Dazy doesn’t have an actual shelter at this point; they are foster home-based, which has its pluses and minuses. 

“The advantages of being in foster homes is each animal gets to know what it is like to be in a home and to know what a family is like and they end up getting better adoptability out of it, they learn better manners out of living in a home and that kind of thing,” said Campbell. 

A shelter, particularly older ones, can be depressing places, lots of concrete and metal, bars and almost prison-like. Campbell said that is often what some people think of when their first thought is about rescuing an animal and not all shelters are like that.  

Because of the increased number of animals needing help, and the amount of animals with injuries or illnesses, Oops-a-Dazy has not been able to get ahead yet, and while the scope of the problems are changing and the sanctuary is back to helping mainly abused and abandoned animals, Campbell said there is no sign of things slowing down anytime soon. 

“It set us back so far that we’re really trying to fundraise to get caught up and to get a little bit ahead so that we know what funds we have available for those animals,” said Campbell. 

She said when they take in an animal they make a lifetime commitment to them and they want to be sure they can sustain that. The sanctuary charges an adoption fee for a number of reasons; one is quality of ownership because people do seem to value what they pay for, but they also include all of the basic care, spaying, neutering, micro-chipping, vaccinating, de-worming and they also get one month free pet insurance. 

“Those basic costs are involved with every single animal that we rescue and our adoption fee essentially just covers those costs. So anytime we have an additional veterinary bill, as well as some of the administrative costs involved in keeping the rescue going, all of those have to come above and beyond,” said Campbell.

All administrative costs are published to the Oops-a-Dazy website and they try to keep it as low as they can. All of their staff are volunteers, no one holds a paid position, and they have great partnerships with their vets who give the biggest discounts that they can. There are plenty more fundraisers being planned for 2014. Watch the Oops-a-Dazy website for details on upcoming events.