The Furry Friends Animal Shelter is a non-profit, no-kill organization dedicated to providing shelter to abandoned, lost or rescued animals of the Barrie Community in Ontario, Canada. The shelter is totally supported by the community and depends on volunteers to assist in fulfilling this goal. In 2007, Furry Friends found loving homes for almost 1000 cats, a few dogs and even some guinea pigs and rabbits! We do not euthanize healthly animals for any reason.

It all started with the very sad loss of a wonderful lady named Lucy Robinson; this lady was a true compassionate cat lover. She visited our shelter about 7 years ago and asked if we could take her cats when she died (she was 92) and she would make a donation to enable us to build our own shelter instead of thousands of dollars in rent. Sadly, one year later, she died and we took her 17 cats; the majority of which were 12 years and older. With the money we received we bought a piece of property - a true fixer upper. As time went buy we realized that the old house was just too old and repairing it was not going to be an option. The decision was made and after consulting with a local builder - where we were told the property was past repair - our hopes of being in there in two years was gone. Our little space that is home to 90 cats would have to do for now. We are renewing our lease for 2 more years, and the cost of rent has gone up.

We are now completing phase one which is demolition, the house is to come down within the next 3 weeks, the cost is quite high and the money for the renovation has now gone to take down this old house. We would love to get onto the next phase by the summer.

The cost of looking after around 150 cats and kittens (it changes daily) is high. All our cats are fixed before they are adopted and have their shots and rabies vaccinations; kittens go out with a voucher which helps with the cost of spaying/neutering and have their first shots.

We still have 7 of Lucy's cats, some are about 18 years old now, we lost some and some went to new homes. We know Lucy would be happy with the care they have had and we thank her for saving these poor cats that would have died on the street if not for her.

Our organization has a ‘no-kill’ policy and is run by volunteers only. We treat all of our cats but if the vet says that there is no hope we all grieve over their passing together.

If anyone would like more details about us please feel free to e-mail us. We are a registered not for profit organization. We do single or group visits to our shelter by appointment, (we have rocking chairs not cages).

We will keep everyone up-to-date on the new shelters progress; please watch this space.

Phase 1 of the shelter is complete.

From Marie, all our wonderful volunteers and foster homes, also all the cats and kittens, plus Duke the dog. We are Furry Friends Animal Shelter Inc. We Recycle Love.

Kitty of the Month

Curly

Curly has been with Furry Friends for quite some time. He came to us with two other cats named Larry and Moe who have both been adopted. Curly is very shy and needs someone with lots of patience.

Acai Berry