There’s good news for animal lovers in Saskatchewan: the province has deemed animal shelters an essential service. With this designation, it means shelters will be able to stay open, even if everything else is forced to close amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s good news for the Saskatoon SPCA, which takes in around 4,000 lost, abandoned or abused animals a year. “What we do is try to adopt those out when we can or return them to owners if they’re looking and we spay and neuter them,” said executive director Graham Dickson. “An instance where we had to shut our doors and we have 4,000 animals wandering the city in distress would be quite problematic.” Dickson says the Saskatoon SPCA has laid off half their staff because of the pandemic. [ Sign