INDIANAPOLIS (WRTV) — On Wednesday, Indianapolis leaders cut the ribbon on a new shelter designed to improve care for thousands of animals each year.
Indianapolis Animal Care Services and Friends of Indy Animals hope the 61,000-square-foot Raymond Street facility will help distressed animals and give them the opportunities to learn how to socialize.
“Animals are incredible assets to all of us, and we need to treat them as such,” Mayor Joe Hogsett said.
The new shelter is more than twice the size of the old facility on Harding Street, with upgraded medical care, more room for animals, and spaces designed to reduce stress while they wait for their forever homes.
“This has been a project that’s been a long time coming. We had to find the funding that was necessary to build this state-of-the-art facility,” Hogsett added.
The $37.25 million facility has a total of 234 dog kennels; 182 of those are indoor/outdoor. There are 80 cat condos, as well as free-roam playgrounds, outdoor cat enclosures, and a 3,000-square-foot medical suite.
“The mission is providing better care, quality care for them and being able to provide resources for the community so they don’t have to come into us in the first place,” Amanda DeHoney-Hinkl, director of Indianapolis Animal Care Services.
The site also includes a dog-walking path, a public dog park, and a barn and pastures to accommodate other large animals.
“We got in two ostriches, we’ve had camels, we’ve had alligators. We’ve had rattlesnakes, horses, cows, pigs, bunnies, and goats. We have to take everything,” DeHoney-Hinkle said.
Although the new facility is a step in the right direction, DeHoney-Hinkle says the community can help control animal population by spaying and neutering their pets, registering unaltered dogs, and microchipping their pets.
“We are maintaining an 89.73% live release rate. Per industry standards, a no-kill shelter is considered no-kill at 90%, and we are just months away from obtaining that title,” she said.
The facility is located at 5001 E. Raymond Street. It is open seven days a week from 12 – 7 p.m.
Click here to see adoptable pets.
