Morinville Veterinary Clinic offers far more services than veterinary care. Aside from medicine and surgery of pets, we also are a great source of quality pet food (and the advice to choose the right food). We provide a boarding facility for both cats and dogs. We even have a groomer on staff to keep pets looking beautiful.Another service that MVC provides to the community is to receive stray animals from the surrounding area. twenty four hours a day, local RCMP and by-law officers can bring in stray dogs and cats that have been picked up. Each animal is carefully examined by our vets and staff to check for medical conditions and attempt to find its owner. This is much easier if the pet has a tattoo or microchip that can be traced. Sometimes, we can reunite pets and people by posting a picture on our Facebook page. However we do it, our main goal is to get these animals home.
For some dogs and cats, our efforts to reunite them with owners do not work out. There may be many reasons for this but the most important thing is that the staff at Morinville Vet Clinic believe that every pet deserves a home. If we cannot find their original home, we will find them a new home.
The first step in that process is to make sure that the pet has received all medical and surgical care that it may need. Vaccines are updated, on the assumption that the pet has never had vaccines (we can not know, because we have no history). The same process applies to deworming. If need be, the pet is spayed or neutered. Every so often, the stray turns out to be pregnant, so the babies are delivered and cared for as strays themselves.
Once ready for adoption, our animals are photographed and publicized in every way that might help them find a “furever home”. Our Facebook page has regular updates on dogs and cats looking for homes. We advertise in local papers in Morinville and St Albert. Our reception area has a wall of pictures of pets (with descriptions of their personalities) looking for homes. As well, several of the cats up for adoption are housed in kennels in the reception area. This lets clients see, hold, and fall in love with them.
Many of our adoptables find homes very quickly. Kittens and small dogs seem easier to find homes for. For the rest, we just keep trying. Older cats and big dogs may be with us for months before we match them up with the right person or family.
Months of being kenneled is not good for any animal’s mental health, so we make sure that all of our long-term strays get as much opportunity as possible to get out and socialize. It is not as good as being in a home, but we are trying to give them everything we can. The next step may be up to YOU. If you are considering getting a new pet, come by MVC and ask to look at one of our strays that has been here a while. It just might be the perfect match.
Written by Morinville Veterinary Clinic
