Fun and games awaits dogs at HSYC festival

People who adopt shelter animals often say they the best decision they could have made was to open their home to a rescue pet.

The women and men who run the Humane Society of York County agree, and hope that message will help them save the lives of even more animals. However, in order to do that, they need lots of support from the community.

The HSYC will host it’s sixth annual Dog Gone Good Time Festival 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sept. 26 at Walter Elisha Park in downtown Fort Mill. The dog-friendly festival is growing larger each year and will include games and activities for friendly, vaccinated dogs. There will also be on-site demonstrations, health care information and animal adoptions.

The money raised during the festival will go, in part, to the HSYC’s medical fund. The need for life saving measures is high. The nonprofit’s new director, Rebecca Boronat, helped changed several policies earlier this year so the shelter is taking in more special medical cases than ever. Previously, the no-kill shelter severely limited taking on heartworm positive dogs or animals that had other serious, but treatable, medical conditions.

“We would turn them away because it cost so much money,” longtime YCHS volunteer Mary Beth Knapp said. “Now we’re accepting them and we are making the money.”

The shelter is coming up with the funds through several means, including donations and events such as the Dog Gone Good Time Festival, which has become one of the HSYC’s largest annual fundraisers.

“The money will feed our medical fund for these babies,” Knapp said.

“It will get them heartworm treatment and allows us to bring even more in. We are working with animal control, we are working with other rescues and we are moving animals.”

It’s not just cases like the five heartworm positive dogs currently on hand that are being welcomed into the shelter. It’s special medical cases, too, such as 3-week-old Tinkerbelle, a teacup Chihuahua. She was taken from her mother too soon, and now has to have specialty care around the clock.

There’s also Ruby, a 12-year-old dog who was surrendered after her owner died. She is partially blind and deaf, and being a senior citizen, also requires regular medical attention.

There are also pets who have been saved from animal hoarding situations and pets who were pulled from shelters where they faced being euthanized.

“That’s one of the main things that we’ve been able to do with the help we’re getting is the animals that are about to be put down, we get them on the last day,” Boronat said.

The new direction she’s taken the HSYC has helped save even more lives, and relieve some of the crowding at other local rescues and shelters. But it’s not easy, and it’s not cheap. That’s why volunteers at the HSYC are asking for community support.

This story was originally published September 4, 2015 at 12:16 PM with the headline "Fun and games awaits dogs at HSYC festival."