Puppy Paradise, Kitty Nirvana

Paradise and Nirvana are not the words usually associated with animal shelters. Snake Pit?, Hell? Those are animal shelter words. Paradise is the word we should be using. I had been hearing about the new shelter that one of the suburbs had built, but I hadn't had a chance to go out and see it. I remembered too well what the suburbs old shelter looked like and I really didn't need to go back there. Ever.

 The new place is beautiful! Enter new and improved shelter. It's the nicest place built to house animals I have even been in. This includes my house. It's huge, airy, and well appointed and all the animals were happy! Happy in a shelter! The place most reminds me of a very high-end daycare. Ages and weights separate the animals, the grown cats are housed together and the kittens were in a "nursery". There are no cages. The animals live four or five to a room a nice room. There are even screened porches where the cats can go to so they can press their little noses against the screen and look at the birds eating at the conveniently located bird feeders
I went into half a dozen rooms and there was no odor. When I think of shelters I think of that odor. This place smelled better then your average Petsmart™. Each kitty had it's own litter box, located in lovely privacy cubby so they could feel comfortable.

They could play with toys or each other on blankets on the floor or they could go rest in individual sleeping cubbies if they were feeling like a nap. Not one single cat was sleeping in its litter box, something I've seen in every shelter situation I've ever visited. I saw it with disturbing frequency at the old shelter. It's not a good thing when they do that, it' means they are feeling anxious. An anxious kitty is not a happy kitty is not a kitty that gets adopted. These kitties are always moving on out of the shelter. No one stays for long. After I swooned over the kitties, all of them for some reason lighter then Kitty. These kitties all felt oddly hollow. I only picked up one that felt solid. Poor hollow kitties. You can make the sows ear into a silk purse but you can't fill out a kitty properly at a shelter. Anyway. After kitty swooning I visited the dogs.

There were very few dogs and no puppies. This was wonderful news. Wonderful because the last time I went to the old shelter the dogs and puppies were stacked up like cord wood and because if there are no puppies I can not bring any puppies home.

There were a few dogs, and they looked like happy dogs. They were housed two to a room and, to be honest, those dogs have a better gig then Dogger. Dogger spends her days in a crate, alone. These dogs wander around their rooms (about the size of an average bedroom) and have volunteers whose single responsibility is to play with them. All. Day.

The dogs section was also odor free and sparkling. The dog rooms were locked, unlike the cats rooms because the dogs learned to open the doors and had taken to touring the facility at will. So now they get locked in. But don't worry about the dogs, they get locked in with plenty of food, fresh water and all the Kong ™ toys they can stand. They also have plenty of visitors and lots of time in the yard to play. The dogs also are adopted much faster then they did at the old gulag, um, shelter. They all looked so happy and at ease so much more adoptable them before.

Now folks don't have to feel like they must, rescue the animalright now, regardless of whether it is the right pet for them. These animals go home because someone loves them, not just because someone feels sorry for them.

Go here to see the shelter. It looks exactly like the picture in the banner.