Dog park construction on schedule.
Soon local pups will have a place to roam free. Aiken’s first dog park is scheduled to open on Dec. 12.
The dog park is a joint project of the City of Aiken and Aiken Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Barbara Nelson, president of the SPCA, said work for the park is on schedule. A driveway made of gravel was recently completed at the site, located on Willow Run Road behind the Willow Run Industrial Park. Nelson said the next step for the project will be to install a 5-foot chain-link fence around the park. The 2.3-acre dog park will include separate areas for small and large dogs.
A 30-foot by 30-foot square-shaped splash pool also will soon be installed at the site. The pool will be about 10 inches deep and will resemble a ground-level swimming pool, according to Nelson.
“Dogs are going to love to splash around in it,” she said. Pet owners will be required to register their dogs with the SPCA or the City of Aiken Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism before they are able to bring them to the facility.
Nelson said the registration will ensure what pets are being taken to the park and that they have been vaccinated. The registration will cost a small fee.
The City has put about $30,000 into the park, which will pay for the cost of the fencing, said Nelson. Aiken SPCA has also invested about $30,000 into the project.
The splash pool will cost about $16,000. The money is being donated by a local family in celebration on their parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.
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Grant aids Aiken SPCA’s Spay and Neuter Fund.
The Aiken Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is the recipient of a challenge grant, which will help low-income households spay and neuter their pets if they have not been able to receive a voucher.
Linda Darden, a seasonal resident of Aiken who helped found Vermont’s North County Animal League, will match up to $5,000 of 2009-10 donor contributions to the Aiken SPCA Spay and Neuter Fund.
Board President Barbara Nelson wrote in an e-mail that the SPCA will use the funds generated by Darden’s challenge grant to assist those individuals who are not able to obtain a spay/neuter voucher from the Aiken County Animal Shelter.
Because of the program’s popularity, the County Shelter has begun rationing vouchers to 25 a month and one per household. Officials are afraid the money allocated will be depleted before the end of the fiscal year.
It has happened before. The $30,000 that Aiken County Council earmarked for the program last fiscal year ran out in nine months. Full Story…
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McDonald’s to help SPCA spread the word
The Aiken SPCA and McDonald’s have teamed up to educate the public on spaying and neutering.
Starting soon, Tom Powers-owned McDonald’s will be filling takeout bags and lining trays with pamphlets that promote the no-cost or low-cost spay and neuter programs available in Aiken County.
The partnership started when SPCA staff dined in a McDonald’s and struck up a conversation with Powers.
“They gave me ‘the 9,000 animals enter shelters and 7,000 don’t come out’ information,” Powers said. “I said, ‘Ya’ll need to tell people about this.’”
The pamphlets that will be handed out in the fast-food restaurants draw attention to that statistic and provide information on the Aiken County Animal Shelter and SPCA’s low-cost spay and neuter voucher programs, which are available to qualifying households.
Animal advocates believe that spaying and neutering cuts down on the unwanted pet population.
“We are always trying to spread the news of spaying and neutering,” said Barbara Nelson, president of the SPCA’s board of directors. “It is the responsible thing to do, and it is affordable.”
Nine thousand fliers have been printed, and Powers plans to distribute them to customers on the busiest days at the McDonald’s on Richland Avenue, Whiskey Road and York Street.
“Hopefully people will take advantage of the programs available,” Nelson said. “It is good that there are businesses and people that support us.”
For more information on the SPCA’s voucher program, call 648-6863.
For more information on the Aiken County Animal Shelter’s voucher program, call 642-1537.
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New Central Website to reunite Aikens Pets
This, we hope is the start of something. Ideally there would be a 3 digit number, like 411 you could call when you find a dog or lose your cat. That, it seems is very hard to do. So we’re starting small. A website set up and run solely to reunited animals and their owners.
Last weekend whilst walking my 2 dogs on a 300 acres farm in Montmorenci, I found a beautiful German Shepard, tired, Hungary and Totally lost. The local convenience store is a hub for lost animals so we asked there and put up flyers. The SPAC and the county Pound were closed as were the vets. There was nothing else I could do…. Then I sent out an emails to all the people I could think of about this dog.
Two days later, COPPER was reunited with his family, who lived on the other side of Windsor and had been frantically putting up signs and looking for him. He had a tag but had lost it, they did not use the local store so did not see my flyer but the power of the Internet came thru and he was able to go home to a very happy 12 yr girl who could finally stop crying.
This is the motivation behind this website, there are no fees, no cost to anyone, just a County wide notice board which hopefully will result in many more happy endings.
With the help of my partner, Wes Funderberg- City of Aiken Web Administrator( who help me set this up), Barbara Nelson, President of Aiken SPCA and all those at The Aiken County Animal shelter. We will have Daily list of lost and Found animals. There will also be an email address which anyone can use to sent their own lost or found. We would encourage people to sign up for our daily alerts and pass they on to other if they think they can help… Just like George Thomas did in the case of Copper!
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