Duane Hicks
Stray cats and dogs, and the town staff who handle them, have a much improved, safer place to stay now that the new Fort Frances Animal Shelter is open.
The town held a grand-opening for the new facility, located just east of the Public Works building on Fifth Street West, on Thursday afternoon.
Bylaw enforcement officer Patrick Briere said the new facility is clean and modern, with better insulation, ventilation, and lighting.
That, in turn, makes it a more safe, clean, and comfortable environment for the cats and dogs, as well as himself and fellow bylaw enforcement officer Arlene “Plum” Byrnes.
“It’s night-and-day compared to the old building,” Briere remarked.
“The old building was bad. This is amazing,” he added.
“Thank you to mayor and council for giving us the money in the budget this year to do it.”
The town had budgeted $100,000 for a new animal shelter. The actual cost ended up being under $85,000.
Wayne Kaun of Ed Kaun and Sons said this was the first time the local contractor was called upon to build an animal shelter.
“It’s made for dogs,” Kaun stressed.
Extra care was taken to ensure the building was well-insulated so it would be energy-efficient for years to come, he noted.
The heating ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system, which only will be
runwhen there are animals at the shelter, also is efficient at keeping the air clean and the temperature right.
There are seven dogs pens and eight cat ones in total.
While there are slightly fewer dog pens than before, they are twice the size of the old ones, Briere said.
“Large dogs couldn’t stand in the old pens,” he noted.
Briere added the town consulted Dr. Dan Pierroz of the Nor-West Animal Clinic here in order to get good quality pens that would be long-lasting.
There also is a special seclusion pen for dogs that might have an illness, such as canine parvovirus (CPV)—a highly-contagious viral illness that affects dogs.
And the floor and walls specifically are designed to be easier to clean.
The sealed floor, for instance, is sloped towards the floor drain. If the dog urinates, it flows underneath the pen door to the drain.
“It’s easy for us to come out, hose everything down, disinfect, clean,” said Briere.
The former shelter, which was 40-50 years old, was in desperate need of repairs.
The building was poorly-insulated and ventilated. There were problems with freezing water in winter, and the town had to pay electrical bills for upwards of $400 a month to heat it and run exhaust fans around the clock.
The pens were too deep for handing some animals, especially cats.
The top five pens were not usable because the animals could get out of them and dogs occasionally got their heads stuck in the bars.
And when the animals in the top pens urinated, it ran down to the ones below.
As well, the roof on both sides of the building had rusted out, the siding needed replacing, there was poor lighting, and the walls showed signs of water damage and mold.
“It was just one thing after another, all the time,” said Chief Building Official Travis Rob.
Briere said the Ministry of Agriculture inspector comes to inspect the shelter here once or twice a year, and he made it clear drastic changes had to be made.
“It was getting to the point where he was coming and giving us orders to do different things to maintain,” Briere noted.
“It was getting to the point where, before he mandates us to do something, we should get ahead of the curve.
“Council supported the idea and this is where we are today,” he enthused.
Coun. Ken Perry gave the new shelter a thumb’s up.
“It’s well done,” he remarked. “I’m impressed.”
Coun. Perry admitted he had never been inside the old shelter, adding, “It looked bad enough from the outside.”
How the shelter works
The open house last Thursday also was a chance to inform the public about the animal shelter and how it operates.
If the town gets a report about a stray cat or dog, they’ll take them into the shelter.
If the animals has tags or a microchip, they’ll attempt to contact the owner.
There is an impound fee of $75.25 to get their cat or dog back.
“We try not to have to charge impound fees unless we have to impound the actual animal,” stressed Briere.
“If they can get to us within a couple of hours, we’ll understand for the most part.”
If the pet is not already tagged, the owner also is required to get a licence.
And if the owner is a “repeat customer,” the town can charge them for allowing their pet to run at large as nuisance animals.
If there’s no owner, or the owner doesn’t respond, the town is mandated to keep the animal for three days.
“The first day doesn’t count, and weekends and holidays are free days so they don’t count within that first 72 hours,” Briere explained.
“But once that 72 hours comes up, the animal is legally the property of the Town of Fort Frances,” he noted.
“So if the owner doesn’t come to us within that time, the animal is ours.”
The town has the authority to adopt the animal out, and works exclusively with the Nor-West Animal Clinic to do this.
“Ninety percent of the animals that we have, we find homes for,” said Briere.
“We do euthanize but we only euthanize animals that we can’t adopt out,” he added.
Briere noted if the animal is not able to be handled by them, they can’t take the liability of putting it into somebody’s home.
“But that’s a very slim percentage, we don’t have many of those,” he stressed, noting some of the animals are adopted out to individuals in Kenora, Dryden, Thunder Bay, and Winnipeg.
The shelter is open for one hour (9-10 a.m.) on Monday to Friday.
For more information, call 274-5323.
