Shelter Design

[Boom Boom]

I wtached a documentary recently on the San Diego Zoo - totally awesome - and stayed awake last night wondering why the same creativity that goes into the making of zoos is not applied to animal  shelters. Is it lack of money? Or is it that shelters are meant to be temporary and easy to clean/set up for the next animal visitor?  Even if a shelter is meant for short-term visits, why can't they be spruced up a bit? All the animal shelters I've seen in my life are pretty dismal looking - just concrete floors and steel or concrete fencing. They look more like jails, frankly. Or have shelters changed? I haven't been to an animal shelter in many years.

[skdadl]

They still look like jails, at least in Toronto. They are underfunded; there are too many abandoned and now-feral animals (especially cats) for the underfunded shelters to cope with; and too many people are irresponsible about animals -- don't get them neutered and spayed, abandon them, etc. Other people just don't want to know.

[Boom Boom]

I had suspected all along that financing of shelters is a major problem. In my dreams I see shelters as joyful wide-open spaces where animals romp to their hearts content, but I guess that's only in my dreams.