My wife volunteers at our local cat shelter. As a former cop who had to deal with "animal shelters" occasionally in my career I recall them as dirty, smelly, dismal, animal prisons. Under heated, with a humid urine filled environment. Hell may be a garden spot in comparison.
Not so the Ocooch Mountain Humane Society, at least not the cat facility. Bright, airy, smells good, superior air handling system, cats live together in suites unless they are in quarantine for an illness. Segregated by ages, with toys and wonderful platforms and towers built by a local man who it also a jailer/dispatcher at the SO. Staffed by volunteers and funded via donations Ocooch Mountain HS is a show case of how animals should be treated. Visitors are encouraged to come play with the cats and kittens as it helps them socialize with people and renders them more "adoptable".
They help arrange inexpensive spay/neuter services. I firmly disagree with spay/neuter/release as even though I am a cat person, I view cats as a non native, invasive predator in the environment. They are also a no kill facility, and again I disagree, as I think there are times euthanasia is appropriate, but not as an inventory reduction strategy as used in the old days in facilities I was familiar with.
With my sense of humor I get a lot of mileage out of teasing my wife that she volunteers in a cat house, and as a poll worker spelled with two L's and not an E. I probably think it is funnier than she does.
