It’s busy inside the Humane Society Yukon’s Mae Bachur Animal Shelter on a sunny weekday afternoon.

Volunteers walk in and out with dogs that need a walk. Staff discuss the animals in their care and the work that needs to be done. A mother cat and her kittens take over space in executive director Dan Moore’s office.

Amid all of that, Moore, society president Brent Slobodin, and other board members are doing everything they can to keep operational costs down as much as possible.

They’re doing so as they work to pay off a deficit and continue to run the 18-year-old facility that’s home to otherwise homeless cats and dogs from the city and other communities.

Slobodin acknowledges the shelter isn’t a golf course, ski hill or any other sort of recreational facility that may have benefited from government funding in the past. However, he wants to see the territory and city put more into the shelter’s operations.

“We have a place (in the community),” he said in an interview this week at the shelter, as both he and Moore noted the difficulties facing the organization.

Looking out into a new fenced yard area where the dogs can run and play, Slobodin and Moore said fundraising for major capital projects is easier than finding money for operations.

In this case, a gofundme campaign and description of the plans for the play area drew many people to give, with an anonymous donation of $10,000 making its way into the contributions.

And while many give generously to keep the shelter going with what cash they can provide and goods the animals need, it remains a challenge to meet the $400,000 operational budget each year.

It doesn’t help that revenue from bingos the group hosts cannot be used for staff salaries, most of which are at minimum wage.

“It’s a struggle,” Slobodin said.

Last fall, a pitch was made to Environment Minister Wade Istchenko that the government help with the shelter deficit, then at about $60,000, along with increasing the annual $179,000 contribution to the shelter by 25 per cent.

Slobodin said his argument was met with the suggestion that a meeting involving the territory, city and humane society to discuss the finances be held after last October’s municipal election.

Cabinet spokesman Michael Edwards said this week Istchenko had suggested the society discuss operational funding with the city, which doesn’t provide such funding.

City spokeswoman Jessica Apolloni, meanwhile, said no formal requests for such funding from the humane society could be found.

Slobodin, however, said he’s sent emails requesting meetings with the mayor and minister – and has not received a response from either government.

He and Moore are quick to note that the group receives some support from both levels, in the form of the $179,000 annual contribution from the government as well as funding for a new boiler and a grant-in-lieu of taxes from the city worth about $7,000 annually.

But they also believe more operational funding should be provided.

As Slobodin pointed out, many of the animals coming into the shelter are moved from the pound the city operates.

And on the territorial side, the shelter is often working with other animal rescue organizations around the territory, and often takes in animals from other communities.

Along with Moore, the shelter runs with a staff of three full-time and five part-time people.

Wages are kept to the minimum due to the high operational costs, and there’s a slew of volunteers. It all helps keep costs much lower than if the territory or city were tasked with running the shelter.

So far this year, the shelter has been home to 125 dogs and nine cats, and vet bills are significant. In 2015, the shelter saw 169 dogs and 17 cats through its doors.

Shelter officials are hopeful for more government funding for operations. They have also issued an invitation for hopefuls in the pending territorial election to visit the Tlingit Street facility and get a sense of the work being done.

So far, NDP Leader Liz Hanson and Tamara Goeppel, the Liberals’ candidate for Whitehorse Centre, have taken them up on the offer and visited the shelter.