Aldergrove Star Feb 7,2003
By MONIQUE TAMMINGA
MetroValley News

While the SPCA animal shelter in Aldergrove is still slated for closure March 31, society officials said they are currently scouting locations for a new type of SPCA adoption centre in Langley.
The "centre" will look more like a pet store than a pound, said B.C. SPCA spokesperson Lorie Chortyk.
About 1,500 to 2,000 square feet in size, it will house between 25 to 50 cats in a communal space and up to six dogs, Chortyk said.
"In the storefront windows we will have cats on one side and probably rabbits and guinea pigs on the other. In the back we will have dogs in kennels, but the bigger dogs will only stay two days so they're not caged too long," she said.
The new centre concept meets with the B.C. SPCA's new philosophy, which is to get away from pound-like settings and into various adoption centres.
However, the majority of Langley dogs will go to the Abbotsford SPCA or satellite adoption centres.
"Instead of a shelter with cages we will have a storefront adoption centre located in a mall or strip mall. It's in a higher traffic area which will increase adoptions," Chortyk said about the new centre. "We will have information on pet care, we'll sell pet items and we'll have a Lower Mainland SPCA data base that people can access if they are looking for a specific type of dog."
In two weeks, the B.C. SPCA will know what mall space they will locate to.
"Staff would be at the centre but it would also need a large contingency of volunteers," said Chortyk.
She is hoping the dog walking volunteer program will be based out of the SPCA centre.
But SPCA volunteers are hoping to be based out of a municipally-run shelter instead.
The large group of animal lovers were in front of Township council Feb. 3 to request that the municipality step to the plate and create its own shelter.
The SPCA has 11 facilities in the Lower Mainland with many being cage and kennel facilities, Chortyk said.
The philosophical change within the society is to get away from caging animals yet Chilliwack and Langley are the only two SPCA shelters to close, she admits.
Donor support for the SPCA has dropped since the closure announcements, but more in Chilliwack than Langley, she said.
"Once people see what we are doing and understand our concepts, our donors will come back."
The society believes its expansion plans at the Abbotsford shelter will be ready in time for the closure of the Langley facility March 31. The SPCA will reveal the cost of the renovations when it is complete, she said.
The society may want out of the animal control business as well.
"We're not for or against animal control but we've taken on contracts that don't even pay for themselves and they are, after all, the municipality's responsibility," she said.
"Our mandate is to humane education and to cruelty investigations and that is really where our donor dollars should go."

© Copyright 2003 Aldergrove Star
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If they had planned this idea all along, then why didn't they announced it at the same time they told everyone that the Langley and Chilliwack shelters were closing? You don't deliver bad news by itself when you have good news to counteract the negative. I do find the last paragraph encouraging though, where Chortyk says that animal control is a municipalities' responsibility.
I can see this pet store idea working for cats if they have a communal climbing room and not cages, and perhaps bunnies and rodents, but I don't think it is a great idea to put dogs there,especially medium and larger breeds. The amount of space available in a retail environment is limited, so I don't see how they can make proper dog runs in a mall. The ones in Petcetera are pitifully small. Perhaps they could have a public computer set up within the new SPCA adoption centres, and people looking for a dog could access the data base right there from within the store. Hopefully, the new Abbotsford shelter will have larger, heated runs for the dogs, and they could remain there, as opposed to the Petcetera style cages.