RETIREMENT & A MISSION CHANGE

It is with a great deal of difficulty, guilt, sadness & embarassment (to be honest) that I write this.  Although I was hoping to retire from boarding dogs for a living for over 22 years, and eventually from rescue as well, it was not supposed to happen as suddenly as it did nor at the cost of good friendships and community.

Since Covid, when a bunch of new boarding facilities opened up, and the current global unrest creating travel uncertainty, boarding has slowed down considerably and I just did not have the interest to try to increase my market share with retirement in mind.  Unfortunately, it also meant that my ability to care properly for the rescues on site, as well as myself, became a struggle.  With no staff or volunteers, I could not keep up with good and proper care for the dogs in rescue.  Especially when numbers spiked from the average 20 rescues, at any given time, to over 70 in 2024 & 2025.  Although I turned away more than I agreed to take in, I still took in too many for one person to look after properly.  As conditions worsened out here, it became increasingly harder to ask for help in any form.

The timely intervention of the county bylaws and the Alberta SPCA only brought to light what I was NOT doing well and should have been doing better for the dogs in care.  I was overwhelmed and under resourced.  Suffice it to say, even though many were willing to help once I put the word out, we would not have made a big enough dent in what we needed to do to continue and retiring earlier than planned seemed like the only viable option for the dogs as well as for me.

There are not enough words to thank Isabelle Michaud and a small group of dedicated volunteers for all the work they did in placing the most adoptable dogs with other rescues and finding the best options for the harder to place dogs.  With their help, a good number of the rescues have another chance at finding furever homes.

To that end, our board of directors had a meeting and agreed that for this year, we will continue to host the agility trials we had planned on and any profit will go toward outstanding vet bills and to support the rescue groups that are now caring for our dogs.  Those groups include the following:

Once the October trial is over, the board will revisit our purpose to determine if we can continue to help in some way other than a foster and/or adoption program or if we close our doors completely.

CindyLu