Dreaming of Flying Away? You could, courtesy of your furry friends here at the Swift Current SPCA. Our travel raffle offer a first prize of a $3,000 travel voucher from Marlin Travel, with a second prize of a fantastic three piece luggage set valued at $150. Who knows where you could be – jetting around the world? The draw for the lucky winners is on October 4th, 2014, at our “Mardi Paws” Gala. Tickets are only $10 each, and there are only 2000 tickets printed, so your chances are good! And as you’ll be helping support the SPCA, we can safely say every ticket is a winner!

Tickets are available at the SPCA Shelter, SPCA bookstore, Fabutan, Healing Essentials, Swift Building Supplies, Signs’n Such, Cowtown, PetValu and Crutch’s Plumbing and Heating.

Dogs die in hot cars Now that warmer weather is at last with us, it’s not too soon to remember just how bad it can be for our canine friends. Everyone’s opened a car door and been amazed by how much hotter it is than outside — but you may not realize exactly how hot a car can get. When it’s 22 degrees, a car in direct sun can quickly reach an internal temperature of 46 degrees. Even in the shade, a car can be 10 to 20 degrees hotter than outdoors, and cracking the window has almost no effect. Dogs don’t have sweat glands all over their bodies like humans do, so the main way they can cool off is by panting, which isn’t very efficient. Once a dog’s body temperature gets over about 40 — normal temperature is around 38 — the result can be everything from nerve damage, heart problems, liver damage, systemic organ failure, and it happens fast, within a matter of minutes. Please, leave your dog at home on hot days.

Click here to download a colour copy of our Hot Car flyer

Click here to download a black & white copy of our Hot Car flyer

Is Your Pet Paws-itively Photogenic? We are now accepting photo submissions for our 2015 Calendar! The Calendar has been a great success in past years, and here’s your opportunity to get in on 2015′s! There are three available entries… Deadline extended to July 31st!

Buy-a-day Entry There are 300 Day Slots available. All pets welcome. $5 per submission. You may enter as many times as you wish, subject to your chosen dates being available. Dates are available on a first-come basis. Pet-of-the-Month Calendar Contest Did your pet come from a Shelter or an Animal Rescue? Does it have a story to tell about finding its forever home? We want to hear about it! We are accepting up to 36 entries for our 12 monthly pages. Winners chosen by a panel of celebrity judges. Those not chosen will still receive a Daily spot in the Calendar. $25 entry fee. Cover Photo “Pet-of-the-Year” Calendar Contest $50 entry fee. One entry per household for a chance for your pet to be on the front cover of our 2015 Calendar! First 25 entries accepted, and winner will be selected by a panel of judges.

Photos should be submitted in landscape or horizontal format and preferably at a minimum 300 dpi. No cell phone photos. We can only accept online entries.

Winners of the Pet-of-the-Month and Cover contest will be announced by August 8th. Winners will be asked for a brief narrative telling a little about their pet’s story, and will have their pet’s pictures taken by a professional photographer. Off-site photo locations can be arranged for anyone who prefers not to use their home. All unsuccessful Monthly and Cover photo submissions will be allocated a randomly selected Day photo spot elsewhere in the calendar. Judges decisions are final. Closing date for all entries is July 31st, 2014.

If you’re looking to bring your bottles and cans in, and also feel as though you would like to make a donation to the SPCA, you can now drop your cans off at the shelter, or bring them to Sarcan and mention you want the money to go to the SPCA and they’ll take care of it for you! We want to thank Sarcan for helping us along with this project, and thank anyone who decides to donate to our cause!

SPCA Swift Current is a local organization dedicated to finding responsible caring life-long homes for lost, abandoned or unwanted animals. This includes preventing unwanted litters by incorporating spaying and neutering in all of our animals’ adoption fees. We are not funded by the provincial or federal government, nor are we connected or affiliated to any other shelter. We are a no-kill facility. We do not euthanize animals solely for space – only in rare cases of severe medical issues or aggression.

Click here to sign up for our Newsletter! Click here to make a Donation

Can you help with a donation of goods? We always need Bleach, liquid laundry soap, fabric softener sheets (unscented), dog toys, cat toys, kitten kibble, canned dog & canned cat food, cat treats, dog treats, towels, wood pellets for cat litter, rubber & latex gloves, heavy duty garbage bags, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, windex, liquid hand soap, Q-tips, 8.5″ X 11″ white printer paper.

If you contact us about your missing pet, we’re more than happy to try and help – but, please, make sure you give us as much information as possible. This should include your contact info, a full description, where the animal went missing (this is important!) and if it’s wearing a collar/tag/is microchipped. We get calls from all over and it is important we have the information needed to try and reunite pets with their humans. Thanks!

If so, contact the SPCA as soon as possible, we may be able to match the pet to the owner! As well, check our pet listings as we are now listing all strays that come to us, along with their photos and descriptions.

Let’s face it, not every animal would be a good fit for you. But we’ve also seen some unexpected matches of the most unlikely pets and people. Hence our Test Drive program. Ok, so you don’t actually drive them, but we think you know what we mean – take your potential pet home and see how things work out. Give it a fair go – don’t expect too much too soon. And if it doesn’t work out, bring them back to us with no hard feelings – we want them to go to the right home, both for the animal and the humans. So if you’re looking for a furry Ferrari or a purring Porsche, we have several racey models on the lot now. Why not drop by for a test drive?