The Badlands Restaurant & Bar and Souris Valley Animal Shelter will be holding a Pancakes for Paws event on Saturday from 8-10 a.m. Tickets to attend the buffet style breakfast are $5 per person. All funds raised at the event are going to SVAS.

Katie Taylor, the assistant director of development, said that the Badlands Restaurant & Bar reached out to them and asked if they could help the shelter raise up to $10,000. The shelter took them up on their offer and were very grateful that the community wanted to help out in such a big way. In May, the Badlands is also holding a Cinco de Mayo fundraiser for SVAS.

The staff at the Badlands Restaurant & Bar are the huge driving force of the fundraisers. They will be volunteering their time to help and serve upwards of 500 people on Saturday morning. “The restaurant is also donating all of the food and beverages, so they’re really going above and beyond to help drive this,” Taylor said.

As of Feb. 20, SVAS had only 11 animals in their shelter, one of the longest residents being a Doberman named Prophyle, who had been there for two weeks. Taylor mentioned that they’ve been finding homes for animals rather quickly. Instead of having to go through the process of looking over adoption paperwork, the staff will sit down and talk face to face with the people who wish to adopt a dog or cat. That makes it easier for them to assure that the animal goes to a home where they will fit best.

The return rate of dogs and cats as of Feb. 20 was less than 1%. They were able to lower that by putting their new adoption process in place.