An artist’s rendering of the southwest view of the new El Cajon Animal Shelter (Courtesy of City of El Cajon)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAl-Ghafry said the delays are due to an original project idea that had a more regional facility in mind that would be large enough to serve El Cajon, La Mesa, Santee, Lemon Grove and other East County areas. The new site also allows the existing shelter to remain open while the new one is built, saving money that would have had to go toward renting an interim facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe feasibility studies probably took us a little bit longer, but we wanted to do it right. We figured if we wait a little bit longer and do it right, it is better than just go off an idea or a plan that may or may not be the best for us,\u201d Al-Ghafry said. \u201cWe wanted to make sure that 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road, people will look back and say, \u2018Yeah, you know they did a really good job here. They waited a little bit longer but they didn\u2019t miss much.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The existing animal shelter, located at 1275 N. Marshall Ave. in El Cajon, was built in 1957. The aging, 5,900-square-foot, cinderblock building houses up to 103 animals at a time. The new shelter, which will be located just up the street at 1305 N. Marshall Ave., will be 13,500 total square feet when including the play yards and will house up to 190 animals.<\/p>\n
In addition to the play yards, the new facility will include a community room that will be used for education; separate dog and cat areas; rooms for the animals with glass walls so they can be showcased for adoption; a full veterinarian center; combo indoor\/outdoor cages for dogs; and a separate evaluation area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat gives you the ability to come into the sally ports, look at dogs or cats that have health issues or have behavioral issues and treat them in a separate area than where you have your community cats or dogs that are ready for adoption,\u201d Al-Ghafrey said.<\/p>\n
Al-Ghafrey visited similar animal centers such as the Humane Society campuses in San Diego and Escondido, the Palm Springs Animal Shelter as well as the county shelter for \u201clessons learned\u201d in building those facilities and to see what would be helpful to put into the new El Cajon facility.<\/p>\n
One idea that came from those trips was to have two entrances \u2014 one for adoption and one for intake.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe intake folks who are giving up their dog or cat, their state of mind is a little bit different than if you are excited about coming to adopt a pet so we wanted to give a dynamic of privacy and respect people\u2019s state of mind,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
La Mesa has contracted to use the shelter for animal care services since 2001, and that contract will continue with the new facility. The city plays a flat fee for each animal that is kept in the shelter. The cost varies per animal but so far the shelter averages around 300 animals per year from the La Mesa, Al-Ghafrey said.<\/p>\n
Of those 300 \u2014 and of all the animals brought to the shelter \u2014 Hutchings worries that some owners might lose their pet just because they are unaware of where to go to look for a lost pet.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople could come in here two weeks later and their animal could be gone and they wouldn\u2019t even know it was here,\u201d Hutchings said, adding that people whose lost pets end up in the shelter have only four to five working days to come and claim them \u2014 after that they are up for adoption.<\/p>\n
Cullinan would also like to get the word out about the shelter to all East County and San Diego residents that the shelter also has animals waiting adoption.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have people come in all the time saying \u2018I never know you guys were here\u2019 from all different parts of town \u2014 San Diego, La Mesa, El Cajon,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Al-Ghafrey is excited that the new shelter will soon be built for the animals that will be housed there and especially for the staff and volunteers who will work there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe staff does a fantastic job,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is my personal observation. They are all very passionate. They deserve a state-of-the-art building that is going to allow them to do what they really do fully for animal care services.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Comun\u00edquese con Jeff Clemetson en jeff@sdcnn.com.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Por Jeff Clemetson<\/p>","protected":false},"author":778,"featured_media":223906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11548","_seopress_titles_title":"New El Cajon Animal Shelter will serve La Mesa","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11548,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-la-mesa-courier","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/778"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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