Canada is in an absolute crisis with an overpopulation of dogs with nowhere to go. Manitoba, Quebec and Ontario seem to be the hardest hit.

As the Founder of Mattie's Place - I am inundated with 20+ emails/calls daily from owners needing to surrender their dogs, shelters needing to transfer dogs out due to over-capacity, rescues requesting transfers as they have dogs being returned and no available foster homes and there's an uptick in dogs being abandoned in public spaces.

Adoptions are way down. There are fewer and fewer foster homes available with everyone away for the summer. Dog rescues are closing down every day. 3 last week have been announced and 2 more that will be announced soon, that I know of.

But the demand for help for Canadian homeless dogs is in a critical state. Canada is in crisis and our Canadian dogs are in big trouble.

Our Mattie's Place mandate is helping at-risk Canadian pets; medical and behaviour. Though we welcome all pets and are not breed specific.

It is costly to take on these Canadian dogs (and cats) and though we receive discounted vetting from our veterinary partners and trainers, we are consistently spending $10,000 - $20,000 per month to keep up with vetting and training costs.

We have reduced many of our adoption fees to $99 to find our difficult-to-adopt dogs incredible homes, allowing adopters to have more funds for professional training support or to help offset medicated costs, with many dogs requiring lifetime medicated support. We are at a financial loss with every adoption, sometimes in the $1,000's

We have always over the years maintained a healthy bank account for Mattie's Place through fundraising efforts, internal financial support and adoption fees, but 2023 has been a challenging year for most rescues with fundraising initiatives and adoptions and we're not an exception to that landscape.

We are at a point currently, 6 months into 2023, that our rescue funds are nearing depletion and as the Founder, I also am a volunteer with the rescue and lend a lot of personal financial support to Mattie's Place, but I can't hold the line on my own any longer.

I also can not take on $10,000 - $20,000/month in personal debt at this rate for Mattie's Place as it wouldn't be the responsible step in this current economy.

Our debts are paid, and we aren't fundraising for current debt relief, but to continue assisting the pets that need us most, we need to fundraise for future dogs and cats, many that are straight off euthanasia lists or high-risk and we can be actionable to their needs without the desperation of raising funds to support them, but rather, confidently knowing we are financially stable to help them.

Today is Thursday, June 29, 2023, and we have agreed to welcome 7 more dogs into our rescue care: A young pup found abandoned from a Northern Canada community arriving next week and 3 pups from a remote fly-in-only Ontario community along with their Mom and we will be getting all her medical up to date and returning Mom to her owners. 3 senior shih tzu's as a transfer in from an animal welfare organization.

We will halt further intake until we are in a responsible financial position to welcome more dogs again with our reserve built back up. We currently have 46 dogs in foster care in the GTA and with the incoming 7, we will max out at 53 until we have the finances in place to support intake again and have a good number of adoptions completed. Some of these dogs have been with us since 2022.

We have shared only some of our vetting bills over the past couple of months. This doesn't include vetting from 1 other veterinary partner and Toronto Veterinary Emergency Hospital where we have had critical cases the past few months also.

As a side note, we are also in our 7th year of feeding local pets in need and host a pet food bank at Mattie's Place, which feeds and offers pet supplies to approximately 1,200 pets per month. Historical funds are also directed to pet food purchases to maintain the continued demand, with massive increases since Covid and pet food donations at a low.

I appreciate you taking the time to read our plight and I hope to get back on track soonest helping Canadian pets in need, with thanks to your generous support.