Best Feel good story of  New Year’s Day 2014

Did you hear about what happened at the Pima County Animal Care Center ( http://webcms.pima.gov/cms/One.aspx?portalId=169&pageId=18469 ) the county operated facility for Pima County, Tucson, Arizona, on Jan 1, 2014? Two hundred and fifty volunteers were turned away. Because there were too many volunteers!

PACC  asked for volunteers to come on New Year's Day and walk shelter dogs, play with cats and help make dog beds. Two hundred and ten volunteers walked dogs , with 250 more volunteer walkers turned away because the walker slots had been filled. Eighty volunteers showed up to construct dog beds for the center and constructed over 100 beds in 45 minutes to go into the new tent shelter being constructed to reduce the crowding at the facility. Adoption fees were also waived, but I don't know how many adoptions they had that day.

www.tucsonsentinel.com
The new tent itself is interesting. I think that they got the Idea from Sherriff Arpaio's tent city at the prison in Phoenix, Az. Both are to reduce overcrowding. Unlike the prison tent city, the animal shelter tent will have heating and Air conditioning. It is 7,200 square feet of new housing and will basically double the shelter size with 100 new kennels. Right now, there are 5 dogs to a kennel, so you can see that this is desperately needed space, especially as the facility is trying to improve its "live release rate". The next step is to get the county to go "no kill" like the county in Phoenix did, and the local humane organization HSSAZ ( http://www.hssaz.org/site/PageServer?pagename=hssaz_homepage ) . Both are worthy causes, PACC because it is trying so darn hard to fix the prison like conditions of its old shelter, and HSSAZ because, well full disclosure, I used to work there and I know with initmate detail how hard they work to rescue and place animals.
www.kvoa.com