Four legged residents in Hinton don’t have much time to wait until their new digs are ready at the Hinton SPCA.

The new building on Kelly Rd. is well underway and in what vice-president of the Hinton and District SPCA, Cathy Thomas calls stage three.

Earlier this week, Thomas was going over the door schedule, getting prices for the nearly 60 doors that will be in the new building.

“We’re on to finishing things, the little bits and pieces, the ‘what kind of sink are we putting there’ sort of stuff,” she says.

Thomas says the building has a new paint job in the upstairs and is really starting to take shape, and that they are on schedule to be done by Christmas, perhaps even sooner, but that’s wishful thinking.

“We had a donation of $30,000 worth of millwork that wasn’t needed (in a different job), and now we’re seeing what part of that millwork we can use. So it’s like cupboards and countertops, so we took it, and we’re going to see what we can do with it in order to save some money,” Thomas says. “We are looking to get a work party together in the fall to do the upstairs sub-floor and the upstairs tiling. We are looking for some volunteers; we can save about $13,000 if we can do it ourselves. We have a few people who will direct us, we just need some backs.”

Thomas is hoping they can find six or seven people to help out near the end of September to do one job, probably over a weekend, and then the other job on a different weekend in early October, depending on their finances.

“We are picking up a rather large cheque today. And we got an even larger cheque last week. So we’ll see what our finances look like.”

The cheque the SPCA received last week was a $200,000 grant cheque, called a Major Community Facility Program grant, for which they were notified in April to receive. On Wednesday, they received another cheque for $41,000 from Telus.

Telus runs a program called Dollars for Doers, where they will match a donation by Telus employees or dealers. The $41,000 cheque is the result of a $20,500 donation, matched by the company.

For those people who might not want to lay tiles but still help out, the SPCA is also looking for some volunteers to work the bingo nights every other Saturday at the Friendship Centre that will also raise money for the new building.

The new animal care centre will be able to hold 23 SPCA dogs, as well as a room for 16 boarding dogs, as boarding generates revenue. It will also be able to hold about 40 cats.

This is an upgrade from the current building that holds nine SPCA dogs, six boarder dogs, and 30 cats, however Thomas says they are frequently housing over 50 cats.

“To say we’re overcrowded is an understatement,” she says.

To help out with the Hinton and District SPCA, call Cathy Thomas at 780-817-1075.