Pet Organization Spot Light: Smile Animal Society
photos courtesy of Joyce
Our pets are our children. We love them; they love us. We spend our days together. Their well-being and safety and happiness are our utmost importance.
But sometimes our lives are flipped upside down. We cannot properly care for them. These issues affect the wellbeing of both us and our pets. BUT…there is something we can do. There is an organization that is run by pet loving volunteers that help us take care of our beloved pets when we physically cannot.
I’d love to introduce you to Joyce and Smile Animal Society!
When I first met Joyce and learned about Smile Animal Society, my heart was filled with joy. Joy for knowing that there is a organization out there that can help. Here are some words from Joyce of Smile Animal Society
We are Smile Animal Society, a small group that support animals and their people.
Smile began with aspirations of becoming a large local animal sanctuary fashioned after Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah. We still have that dream but reality held us to doing what we were able to do well at this time. We have found a niche that was lacking and we are concentrating on filling it.
Our journey started in 2015. Seeing the chain of love between pets and people not being broken when going through hard times. We help pet owners through difficult times so that they can remain a family. Our amazing foster parents are happy to care for pets while their owners go through surgeries, home displacements, and treatment programs and escaping abusive situations. Once they are through the crisis we return the pets to their families. This lightens the load on the local shelters and avoids loved pets from having to be surrendered.
We are always looking for foster families for dogs and cats for periods up to 3 months. Everything is provided. We also need folks to help with our Feast and simply spread the word about what we do.
We have taken in big and small, old and young, sometimes very lively and sometimes not. We prefer that vaccinations are up to date and the pets are spayed/neutered. If not we are happy to help make that happen.
There are 3 board members, Joyce Taylor, Viv Baker and Bonnie Harwood and we could not function without our wonderful group of foster parents; which is thankfully steadily growing. Our focus has been on Grey County, Owen Sound and we are hoping to expand into Bruce County in the near future.
We raise funds through an annual event at the Meaford Harbour in August called “The Feast of Fields”. This local food vegetarian/vegan feast is now in it’s 6th year and is planned for Saturday August 24th. The monies raised support our foster care as well as allowing us to donate funds to family pets vet bills when needed. If you’re interested in coming, please give me a call 🙂
Smile Animal Society is here to bring piece-of-mind to people, provide loving and safe homes for pets, and then bring pet and parents back together again so that they can continue to bring joy to each others lives. Imagine the joy of an elderly person, having recovered from surgery, when their beloved senior cat is brought home to be by once again by their side. Or a mother and 2 young children who have spent 3 months in a shelter after finally escaping a violently abusive partner, thankful that they did not have to leave their family dog behind, they are now reunited in their new home starting their new life.
Smile Animal Society is an amazing group of pet loving people that change the lives of our pets and their parents. Below are some fun images that Joyce provided me of some of their fosters and images from last year’s ‘The Feast of Fields’ fundraiser.
For more information about fostering, needing a foster or want tickets for The Feast of Fields, please check out their Facebook page or email/call Joyce.
Joyce 519-374-7405.
smileanimalsociety@gmail.com
