Submitted by: Margaret Romak, Swan Valley Animal Protection League | The Swan Valley Animal Protection League would like to make the public aware that we are temporarily suspending our Voucher Program. For the last 24 years the SVAPL has provided financial support to help the public get their animals spayed or neutered. We have spent thousands of dollars each year for this: For example:

2009- $2,350.00 2010-$3,956.00 2011- $1,000 plus, already

This was the main purpose the SVAPL was formed, back in 1987. The founding members saw a great need to encourage people to spay and neuter their animals. It is still the message today.

SVAPL has performed a very valuable service for the valley –there have been over 1000 vouchers given out over the years. If you count the number of animals per litter, multiplied by the number of litters born per year, multiplied by the years this service has been provided, the total is truly staggering. That is a lot of unwanted animals that would have been shot, euthanized, abandoned, starved, or who would have lived short, painful lives. Imagine the stray population without us!

A cat or dog who have babies, and whose babies have babies, etc, can theoretically be responsible for the birth of 50-200 kittens or puppies in just a year or two.

The need for what we do is so great. There are more people all the time who are getting their animals fixed, and while that is progress, it means our expenses continue to grow as well.

We are suspending the Voucher Program for now, because our time and money is being spread very thin. We have to move our dog facililty and our cat facility, as the people who had them have moved. We have refurbishing and upgrading to do with our facilities, to meet Mb. Animal Care Act standards. We still have the usual amount of stray dogs and cats coming in, plus we still have 5 German Shepherds to foster and place. We are not funded by the government, we rely strictly on donations, and community support, such as SV Community Foundation, the Swan Valley Credit Union Builder Program, etc. We are very appreciative of the support we get, but the costs are high, and we are constantly short of money. (We will be applying for an MCSC grant, if we ever get time to complete the application!)

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man.”
— Mahatma Gandhi