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Your new best friend awaits

May is Be Kind to Animals Month across B.C., and it’s also a month that the B.C. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals highlights the amazing animals available for adoption in shelters across the province.
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Moji was badly abused until his rescue.

by Lorie Chortyk

May is Be Kind to Animals Month across B.C., and it’s also a month that the B.C. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals highlights the amazing animals available for adoption in shelters across the province.

Those of us who work in the field of animal protection see many sad, often devastating, cases of animal abuse and neglect every single day. More than 33,000 abused, neglected, injured and homeless animals enter our shelters each year.

Each of these animals touches our hearts and there is no greater joy for anyone involved in animal rescue than seeing an animal escape a dangerous and abusive life to find the loving, forever home they deserve.

One such example is the case of Moji, a sweet-natured pit bull-whippet cross, who was taken into SPCA care after constables received a report that he was being abused. Moji had led a terrifying existence with his previous owner – he was regularly beaten, tortured, starved, kicked and burned with a cigarette lighter, all the while kept on a short chain with no means of escape. He was denied urgently needed medical care and had no hope, until a watchful neighbour noticed his plight and called the SPCA.

Moji was recovering at an SPCA shelter when a wonderful family came in, asking which dog “needed a home the most.” When they heard Moji’s story, they immediately adopted him and this once-abused dog is now a beloved, happy-go-lucky family pet. Moji’s new family dotes on him and laughs daily at his antics, as he instigates games of hide and seek with his favourite toys and becomes hopelessly tangled in the sheets of their daughter’s bed, where he regularly naps.

Fifty times a day, every day of the year, an animal in a BC SPCA branch finds a new, loving home. These beautiful animals are in shelters through no fault of their own, but because humans either couldn’t, or wouldn’t provide the care they deserved.

If you are thinking of adding a furry friend to your family, consider the SPCA your “first adoption option.”  There are so many more animals, like Moji, who desperately want to be part of a family. To find your new best friend, visit your local shelter or visit spca.bc.ca.

Lorie Chortyk is the general manager of community relations for the BC SPCA.