Talk with Tanya

Our new shelter is beautiful and we hope you will come see it. We are eternally grateful to our community of supporters that helped make this dream a reality.

Our old shelter (scheduled to be a pile of rubble within a day or two) looked like a jail. It was sick, cramped, and stressful on people and animals. It repelled adopters because it was too sad to visit and, even though our staff and volunteers took extraordinary care of the animals, it didn’t elicit much confidence.

Our new state-of-the-art facility is designed to be a healthy space focused on comforting and healing the lost, unwanted, hurt, and abused. It is also designed to be a supportive space for staff and volunteers to do their important work, and a welcoming space for adopters looking to meet their new best friend. In fact, one of the greatest benefits of a new animal shelter is the increase in adoptions that occurs because people want to visit.

An excited visitor commenting on our new digs last week said, “It is so nice here. You don’t even feel sorry for the animals anymore.”

While I agree, I don’t want people to forget that as lovely as this place is, it is still a temporary shelter. It is not a home and it can not be a sanctuary. However comfy we are, to effectively serve our community’s homeless animals, we must have room for the next animal that comes through our door… because they never stop coming.

Our mission’s success depends on animals getting adopted.

However, we don’t want folks adopting simply out of sympathy. Do we want people committed to adoption because it saves innocent lives? Absolutely. But when it comes to selecting a new family member, we want to help families find good matches. Animals have unique personalities and needs, just like humans. We want everyone, two-footed and four-footed, to be happy.

We are not against responsible breeders. But our desire is to see everyone make adoption their first option when looking for a new companion animal. Nationally, about 20% of the population get their pets from animal shelters or rescue groups. Just raising that to 30% will have an extraordinary life-saving impact.

My older sister is a big animal lover with an penchant for Black Labs. Historically she has purchased her Labs from a breeder because she thought shelter dogs were “ruined”. Certainly an abused animal can bear scars, but for the most part, animals are incredibly resilient and forgiving. On most days, I would say more so than humans.

Boopsie

It is important to know that the animals we have available for adoption are here through no fault of their own. Usually human shortcomings or an uncontrollable life crisis have brought them to our door. They are no different than a companion animal you can get anywhere else: they require patience, attention, exercise, and training. In return, they give unconditional love and loyal companionship.

Take the cat Boopsie, currently up for adoption. A sweet and graceful 8-year old girl, she was abandoned outside when her family moved, left behind to fend for herself. This is quite common, especially with cats. With plenty of life left in her, she deserves a second chance at a loving home.

Cinderella

Or Cinderella, just a pup. Her owner was driving with her in the back of his pick-up truck and she jumped out. A Good Samaritan picked her up from the middle of the road and chased down the driver of the truck. It turned out that he didn’t want her back. So here she sits, waiting for someone to take her home.

These animals, and all the others at our shelter, deserve another chance at a happy life. Having a community proudly committed to adoption helps ensure they have that chance. And, hopefully, having a welcoming shelter will make that choice a lot easier to make.

Please come see us soon!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Adoption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.