Nursery

On Thursday, May 15th 2008, the MIRA Foundation inaugurated a new building, the RBC Pavillon. This building has two distinct units, a nursery and a veterinary clinic. The nursery was built to meet the highest hygiene standards. Visitors can now access a vast corridor to observe the puppies without disturbing them and their mothers. There are 18 paddocks in the nursery. The veterinary clinic is now larger and equipped with high-tech technology instruments, an examination room, an operating room and an X-Ray room.

With these installations in place, the MIRA Foundation would like to double the number of dogs attributed to handicapped persons within the next five years. This project has come to fruition thanks to the long lasting financial support of RBC Royal Bank and its clients, and the Fondation Marcelle et Jean Coutu.

Actually, more than 300 puppies are born each year at the MIRA nursery. The puppies stay with their mothers until they are 9 weeks old. Then, each puppy is placed in a foster family. The mission of a foster family is to socialize puppies in order to prepare them for guide and service dog training. Socializing a puppy means educating it for good behaviour in the home and exposing it to various environments on a regular basis (mainly urban and social environments). The guide and service dogs will work in these environments in the future.