Our Building

The building was originally a truck repair shop which was retrofitted to accomodate our needs. The big open space had the ideal area with high ceilings, cement floor and walls to house our kennels. The building uses gas heat with one large open kennel area in the back and four closed rooms. Two of the rooms are used as medical and isolation rooms, one serves as a training/visitation room while the last serves as our lobby with administrative office, open air cat cages and small dog/puppy cages.

Our approved cats are housed in open air colonies to relieve the stress of isolation and allow the public to interact directly with them. More socialization and interaction with people is a great way to enrich their lives while waiting for their permanent homes here at the shelter. 

You are encouraged to come and play with our cats but please supervise children at all times and sanitize your hands before entering another cat cage.

We often have doggie play groups that are supervised so that our critters can learn to get along with other dogs and just be dogs. In the summer time you can almost always see them in kiddie pools or playing frisbee with our level 3 and 4 volunteers.

Neutral territory, such as our play yards, is a great way to allow adopters to ensure their new dog will get along with their current dog.

Twice daily, our dogs run in excercise kennels outside, which allows staff to clean the indoor kennels and the dogs are able to have sunshine and fresh air. These kennels have cement bases, aluminum roofs and dog houses to protect against the elements. 

We have a total of 29 dog kennels at our shelter. For larger dogs, we aquired 4' x 10' lifted kennels with drains 20+ years ago. The medium sized kennels are 3' x 6' and are separated by concrete block. 

We sell a variety of pet supplies at the shelter at a discounted rate: Flea treatments, heartworm preventative, microchips, City of Richmond animal registration tags. All proceeds benefit the shelter.