Shelter Me

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- Hi, I'm Jackson Galaxy.

I'm a TV host, author, and a cat expert.

I've dedicated my life to helping all animals.

And this is Daisy.

She's one of thousands of animals available for adoption in Los Angeles.

Shelter Me tells inspiring stories about animals and the people who help them.

On this episode of Shelter Me, we go to Long Beach, California, where a shelter turns their City Hall into a Kitty Hall for a unique out- of-shelter adoption event.

- Kitty Hall, it's genius.

- All mayors should host a Kitty Hall at some point.

- Knowing that they've got good homes, that's what's so important.

- Let's go in your box, baby.

You're going home.

- And then we go to Pensacola, Florida, where a group of volunteers bring the community together to help renovate their local shelter.

- Really a three-week build.

We're pushing in about nine days.

- Uh oh, we may have bitten off more than we can chew.

- Why do I have to do everything around here?

- I love being a part of this group and we're doing something really great for these animals.

- The cats in our shelters really need our help.

Beauties like Daisy here are just waiting to join your family.

And let me tell you, they bring so much joy to our lives.

Let's help them find loving homes today.

Shelter me And you will have all of my love and loyalty - My name's Jill Prout.

I'm the Behavior and Rehoming Coordinator for Long Beach Animal Care Services.

We are here at Long Beach City Hall getting ready for our big adoption event, Kitty Hall.

We're here to meet with Mayor Robert Garcia.

We have a meeting to discuss all the logistics and planning for tomorrow's event and we're just really excited to find animals new homes.

- Good to see you guys.

- My name is Robert Garcia.

I'm the mayor of Long Beach and I've been mayor for three years.

One of the great things about Long Beach is its kind of diversity.

It's got a great business community, but also people love animals here.

- I know we're gonna talk some about Kitty Hall and everything I hear is gonna be a great event tomorrow.

- We have at least 40 coming, pending adoptions this week and we've got anything too, from kittens to seniors.

So anybody that was healthy and available, we will be bringing.

- Good, I remember last year I think one of my staff members also adopted one of the eldest cats that was having a hard time getting adopted.

So I wanna make sure we're bringing all types of cats and kittens.

Even some of the ones that are tougher to, you know, to get adopted would be great.

Just wanna thank you guys again.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

- I'm very excited.

- Thank you so much.

- Absolutely.

- Long Beach Animal Care Services is an open admissions municipal shelter, meaning we're run by the city.

It also means that we have to take in any animals that come through our doors.

That means strays.

We also do investigations for neglect and cruelty cases.

People sometimes tend to forget, though, that we are an adoption center as well and we have a lot of healthy, happy, adoptable animals just looking for forever homes.

This is Algernon.

He came to us as a stray.

He had a microchip and we called the number on the chip and nobody came to claim him.

So he's gonna be available at Kitty Hall.

- He's gorgeous.

- You see those David Bowie eyes?

- They're beautiful.

- I feel like Kitty Hall is such a special event.

I'm a cat person myself.

I have two shelter cats and shelter cats have the hardest time.

People think sometimes it's chihuahuas or pit bulls that are the most euthanized, but it's actually cats, nationwide.

It's events like this that give exposure to cats that otherwise wouldn't be adopted in the shelter environment.

- Latte was found abandoned in a box at Starbucks.

She's about 10 weeks old and she just got spayed so she could come be a star at Kitty Hall.

- There's an overpopulation of cats because of lack of spay and neuter, lack of education.

There's always gonna be owner surrenders.

People's lives change and we understand that.

But we have to take these cats in.

What we really try to do at Long Beach Animal Care Services is reach back out to the community, offer education, offer free spay and neuter or vouchers to the folks that otherwise wouldn't have access to these things, as well as adoption programs.

- We have 40-plus cats and we gotta get ready, start loading now.

So all the carriers are already staged in front of the cats that are gonna be loaded.

Then we're moving them to the lobby and then onto the adoption vehicle.

And we're headed towards City Hall.

- On 3.

1,2,3.

All cats adopted!

- Okay, next cat on the list.

Is Latte ready?

Now we know you're gonna get adopted 'cause you're too cute to handle.

- This is the last one, 824.

- OK, 824?

- Yes.

- OK, everybody's checked off and I think this room is complete.

- Bringing cats offsite, especially this large amount of cats that we'll be bringing to Kitty Hall, is a large undertaking.

However, the wonderful part is that these cats are already spayed and neutered.

They're already microchipped, they already have their rabies vaccine and they are ready to walk out the door that day with adopters.

40 cats from the shelter to an offsite event is a lot of work but it's gonna be worth it.

I think there are gonna be a lot of adoptions today.

The volunteers really busted it out and we're gonna start making our way towards City Hall.

The cats had a good ride.

It was nice and quiet in the van.

They're all kind of wondering where they're going today and we have arrived, and little did they know they're gonna find their forever homes when they got here.

We have about an hour, 15 minutes or so.

So the hustle is on right now.

We had about 10 to 15 volunteers helping with this specific event, which is a good turnout for us.

Volunteers make it all possible.

Volunteers are good-hearted people that are donating their time to make a difference, and we couldn't do it without them.

- So hopefully this will give 'em a good place to show their stuff and and get the interest of people who might want to adopt.

- Okay.

And then now, last, my favorite cat, Glory.

Hi girly girl.

She's my favorite at the shelter.

She's 14 years old.

Owner surrender.

The owners were moving and they couldn't keep her anymore.

She lived with another cat but they owned her all 14 years so it's kind of sad.

So I'm hoping today that we can try to really push for her and see if we can find her placement.

- We will.

Yeah, we will.

- I think today's your day honey.

She is beautiful.

There you go.

- This is our brand new adoption vehicle.

It was donated to us by a generous donor.

There's air conditioning, they have lights, they're showcased, they get to see outside, they get a little sun on their backs, they're set up, they have room space to stretch out.

Really exciting.

Now all they need is a good home.

- I've been considering I only have one cat.

I wanna get another one.

- That one.

Considering that one - I just wanna say thank you everybody for coming to our third annual Kitty Hall.

We have a lot of cats.

The Mayor is gonna be here soon, so we're hopeful we can just jump in and start doing some adoptions.

- How are you?

- The mayor has a great involvement with Kitty Hall.

Not only was this his brainchild and and really brought to life by him, but he allows us to have a great partnership with the city and oftentimes many of the city employees end up adopting some of these cats.

- Well I work here and then everyone over there was like, we're going down to get a kitty.

And everyone was like, I'm not gonna buy one, I'm not gonna buy one, we're not gonna buy one.

I was like, I wanna buy one.

- This is Peaches.

- Which one are you getting?

- Delbert.

- Okay, which one's Delbert?

- The gray one.

- Can I get a cheer?

First two adoptions of the day.

- We have two more in line right now.

So four total and we're only about an hour into the day.

- Awesome.

I love it.

I love it.

Congratulations.

- Thank you so much.

I appre- ciate it.

Thank you for being here.

- Absolutely.

- This is Rosemary.

I think she's about three weeks old and she's up for adoption.

I think I like her.

- All right, bye Kitty!

Congratulations.

- This is my first year.

It's wonderful.

It's very organized.

It's wonderful to see all the people coming in.

You can see we're getting more and more people coming into the front doors and, good crowd here.

So it looks like, I think we're gonna be really successful.

- So we've only started a little bit ago and we're already up to four and I think we got a few more getting ready to go.

So I expect to see this number go a lot higher.

- From our first Kitty Hall.

I adopted an adult cat that wasn't getting adopted and she went home with me.

And then at the second Kitty Hall I adopted one for my parents.

So, yeah... - Thank you so much for adopting him.

- He's a shelter favorite.

We're very excited for you and happy for you.

- Algernon knocked it out.

He was a little showboat.

He's prancing around and he caught the eye of someone and got to walk out the door with that lucky person today.

- Alright buddy.

- Okay, you're all set.

You are good to go right there and then we'll finish it up.

- I'm just happy this is another opportunity for all of our amazing volunteers at Animal Care Services to just show what great, you know, kittens and cats we have and they just need good homes.

I have my cats from animal care services and it's a great event.

So it's good exposure too.

A lot of people will come to the event adopt here or come back and adopt at the shelter, so it's really great.

- Creampuff is such a cutie.

Nobody had come for him while he was there at the shelter.

We thought, heck, let's throw him on the adoption vehicle and bring him to Katy Hall.

And sure enough, somebody who saw him at the shelter came down and adopted.

- It's your lucky day.

Here's your new baby.

Weren't you guys at the shelter the other day?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Oh my gosh.

- We had to come back for him.

- Thank you so much for coming back for him.

- You're welcome.

We're thrilled.

- Kitty Hall.

Isn't that so cute?

It's genius.

So last year I adopted Catsy Klein.

She was the last one to be adopted and it really inspired me to get involved with the Long Beach Animal Care Services and the shelter.

I volunteer with them every Friday night after a a week's worth of, you know, hard work.

I just go and hang out with the cats and it's so great and you know, inspiring and just getting involved with that and the opportunity to, to help save more lives.

- Glory is one of my favorites, if not my favorite cat in the shelter.

I'm partial to the older cats.

I like them 'cause, like we were saying, like you know who they are, you know their personality, so you get what you see and they have a harder time being placed so they usually stay longer.

You can grow more close to them, grow more attached to them.

And that's what really drives me to try to find her placement.

Especially today.

You know, we'd love to not have to bring her back to the shelter if possible.

- She's purring.

- I was pleasantly surprised with how Gloria did and to be honest, I was hesitant about bringing her at first.

I thought a 14-year-old cat, there may not be someone in the market for her at this time, but you know, this is the place for cats like that.

Cats that are underdogs that would not have a chance otherwise, to bring them down and showcase them in this new environment to a different audience of people.

I guess it ended up being a really good decision because she found her home.

- There you go.

Off you go.

Thanks so much.

- Thank you.

- Congrats.

- The end of the day.

When I look at the total on the board, it just, it warms my heart and I get chills just knowing that that many animals won't be returning to the shelter, which is kind of sad because I won't see them anymore, but knowing that they've got good homes, that's what is so important.

- Let's go in your box baby.

You're going home.

- We had awesome energy today.

It was thrilling.

The volunteers were jazzed about being here.

The cats did really, really well.

Our staff is beyond excitement.

I mean this was just a wonderful opportunity for us and we're thankful to come every year.

- I love doing Kitty Hall because it's a great way to reach out to the community.

It brings the animal community together, gets our staff out of the shelter and into City Hall and we can interact and it's just, it's just really fun.

It's one of the great days of the year.

So I really think all mayors should host a Kitty Hall at some point in their City Hall.

- Well we had a wonderful day, a wonderful turnout and I just wanted to thank everyone on behalf of the city for volunteering your time today.

We couldn't have done it without you guys.

So without further ado, our adoption total, 20 cats!

That's right.

That's right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

The lobby was packed this morning.

You couldn't even get by.

It was hard to walk around, but it was a wonderful day.

It was stressful, it was busy but it was monumental for us.

We got a lot of animals into new loving homes and it was just thrilling for our staff and volunteers to be a part of it.

- Finally made it to Pensacola.

- I had no idea that The Keys were so far away.

- It's one state.

How can it be so long?

- You would think with this being 128th project we'd be used to driving all over the place.

- No, I'm not there yet.

- That was a haul.

- My name is Bryna Donley.

I am from Greater Goods Rescue Rebuild Program.

I'm actually the director of Rescue Rebuild.

We travel around the country with volunteers making a better place for animals.

This is our 128th project.

We have been in every state except for Alaska and Hawaii.

- My name is Zach Baker and I'm a program manager, which basically means that I do a little bit of everything.

We love working with municipal shelters.

Our primary goal is to create spaces that get more pets adopted.

- So what's the plan for today?

- So we're gonna be meeting John, he's the shelter manager.

We're looking forward to hearing what he's kind of got in mind, and how we can help him out.

- Alright, well let's take a look.

As a municipal shelter, we're an open admission facility, so figuring out ways to bring people in here to do adoptions is a huge need for this shelter.

This is one of the shelters that was built in the, probably about 20 years ago.

It's a typical Florida shelter and it was more designed for like warehousing than it is actual animal welfare.

- All right, so here it is.

This is our lobby.

This is the first thing you see when you come in.

What do you guys think?

- Wow, that lobby, it was very uninviting, very governmental.

- But then immediately I was like, but wait, there's potential here.

There's a lot of potential here.

- It's a little small for a play yard, but it seems a little big for me.

- Works better than having nothing at all.

But it definitely has its challenges.

- Every shelter that we go to, one of our huge goals is get dogs outta kennels, get 'em fresh air, get 'em exercised.

We've done a shelter in Nashville that they specifically had worked with a group of dogs playing for life and we wanna try to do something like that.

- Okay, so if we did like two big yards and divided it kind of in half here, you get 'em out here, you get 'em playing in large groups, they can also just like decompress out here, but it also socializes them.

- Helps with behavior assessment, most importantly helps with adoption.

- Perfect.

- Long before I decided to go play in animal shelters, I was a science dork.

Yes, I have a PhD.

I'm a doctor, was a molecular ecologist.

So that analytical mind has certainly helped me over the years.

It's all fixing and problem solving to me.

I love it.

- Looks a move from one side to the other, but beyond that they're still confined to a pretty small space.

- So John, I think if we do take out that wall, this could be awesome.

I mean, would you consider doing colony style living?

- Yeah, I've done it at one of the shelters that I ran in the past and I did like it, and I would love to do it again.

- We love doing these and they do amazing things for adoption rates.

People interacting with the cats down like they would in their house is what it's all about.

- Hi, I am Kim.

I'm here with Laura and Michelle and we are friends of the Escambia County Animal Shelter.

- We had around 150 organizations sign up and try to get this grant that we're here giving out now.

It was a little bouncy.

It was jittery but the sentiment and the passion and the drive for them to really help this shelter was so over the top that we just had to come.

At Greater Good we raise our money $5 at a time to help animal programs, but the value is really in the volunteers.

We set the budget tentatively around $75,000.

How much of that money is saved by not paying contractor fees and all of that.

I mean the value of it is, oh my goodness, - We knew that if we came here and we invested our time here, that it would be well spent.

And we were really excited to come back next month and get started.

- All right, I'm looking forward to it too.

- Thanks again for showing us around today.

It was a really great example of the type of shelter that we look for and that they were already doing really good things.

They just needed a little bit of help.

- Our rule with rescue rebuild is if you sign up and you can get to wherever we're building, we will feed you and we'll give you a place to stay.

So that has kind of cultivated this very family traveling pack of eclectic humans over the years - I'm from Oklahoma and outside of rescue work, I'm a grandmother of two, a mother of two and we have a small little company business, family business.

But my passion is really with animals.

- I just started a couple months ago traveling with them outside of work and volunteering wherever they go.

- These people love animals and they love to volunteer.

What is more me than that?

So I was fortunate enough to join and since then I've gone on a bunch of trips and been able to do this so many different times.

It's so awesome and I'm here now so it's great.

- Alright so how are we feeling?

Chris, you are on chain link fence.

Heather, before you start that, we have got to demo the old fence.

- I'm Heather Beams.

I've been a volunteer with Rescue Rebuild since 2011.

- Heather has been with me since she was a freshman in college.

She has the most amazing ability to adapt to any circumstance I throw her in.

- And they can't get rid of me.

The Pensacola volunteers have been amazing.

- Beams.

This is your crew.

Get 'em going on barbed wire.

- Huge community turnout.

That's what it's really all about.

- I need three more people, alright, three more people over here.

Our first Saturday was by far our busiest day on this project.

- 20 people.

I need you to go with Chris.

He's gonna get you going on fencing.

- What we thought was going to be a 90 volunteer day ended up being a 200 plus day.

I'm now going to send the rest of you with Miss Paula.

Definitely wanting gloves.

Is anybody who is not running to catch up with Chris, You are coming with me.

I do love yelling.

It's like my favorite thing.

- We live for this.

Getting people out to animal shelters, building things and so this is the exciting part.

- So I saw this on the news and I just decided, you know, I, I really wanted to give back to the community.

I do a lot of volunteer work so I just wanted to join in on the fun today.

- We're helping ... project out.

- We're looking forward to getting our hands dirty and I think everyone else is too.

We've got an awesome group of Boy Scouts out here doing some Eagle Scout projects.

We've got the Navy crowd and then beyond that we have people that this is their first time here, which is the the most exciting part.

- You can feel the energy, it really makes it exciting.

It makes you feel good that people carry this much from your community to come out and help and make a difference at your shelter.

- I have Cub Scouts from Pack 632 here and we're here to volunteer to help do whatever's needed.

- I've never seen a group of people that were so energized and ready to go, we'll have this knocked out no time.

- Pensacola has a Navy base.

They come out and help the shelter all the time.

If you have big projects, they're the people to call to do that.

We made them move 47 tons of gravel and we couldn't have done it without them.

- Hi, my name's Baez.

I'm an ATI in the Navy and I'm here in Pensacola for training.

It was a lot of us, a lot from the Navy.

A few guys from the Army are here.

It's hard for me working here today here, hearing all all the cats meow and the dogs bark, 'cause I can't take them home and I really want to.

But yeah, I really do think it's great that you have people who rescue dogs and cats and want to give them a good home.

- We have a lot of great energy out here today.

These volunteers are super happy.

I'm not sure if it's because they're helping dogs or because this is probably the first nice sunny day they've had in two weeks.

Either way I'm not complaining.

Happy people work harder, work faster and these guys are doing an amazing job.

- All right, so give a swat.

The University of West Florida sent us 25 of their female sluggers.

We have the softball team out here.

- First of all there was block flying and everything else.

I was afraid we were gonna tear up something else besides the wall.

That's a huge change in operations.

That's a huge change in the footprint of this building and the blueprint.

So there's always a little nervousness.

- These girls are amazing.

They're just making quick work of a really hard job.

Not a team that I'd want to be up against at a softball game.

- And it's really cool to be able to help here at the shelter with animals because who doesn't love animals?

And it's fun to be around that and just help out in any way we can.

- I've been here for four years and there's a lot of areas in this shelter that need renovating but nothing worse than that lobby.

If nothing else had happened I would've been thrilled just to see that counter gone.

- Zach Baker loves machinery.

He always gets us the biggest toy he ever can for any job we do.

But on this one it was like the funniest thing, 'cause I was expecting a floor jack and in walks this little thing that looks like it, it couldn't chip a paper off the floor.

Zach Baker, can you go grab us like some chisels and sledges and let's see if we can do this by hand?

That very wussy tile chipper that you got didn't even chip up one tile.

- So we put the softball players to work.

- At College Women's Softball Division 2 right here in Pensacola, Florida.

And we're about to start our season in two weeks.

This is just getting us ready for the season, I guess.

- And at the end of the day, isn't that what it's all about?

And we got the job done even better.

- Wow.

It is quiet and empty this morning compared to last night.

It's nice.

It's big and empty in here now, but the floor's gotta go in.

They've gotta put a counter in, they've gotta fix the walls, obviously they've torn up the ceiling.

There's a whole lot to do before we can be operational on Tuesday.

So I'm a little apprehensive but I think they can get it done.

I'm gonna try to have faith.

- Last night we were here in the the cat lobby room and we had this little area here that was raised.

It was sort of a look at the cat in the window sort of spot, but it really wasn't functional.

So this is gonna be the home to a brand new bench.

And so one more spot that cats can be out and and spending time with adopters.

- People always ask how do you gauge how much you can get done in a set period of time with a set budget?

How do you know that?

You're gonna send me 400 volunteers I've never met a day in my life and I'm supposed to be able to predict?

You don't.

And so, long story short, every job, including this one, we always go, "uh oh.

We may have bitten off more than we can chew."

- They need help, we're gonna help.

That's what we're here for.

- We have so much to do.

This is really a three week build.

We're pushing into about nine days - And everybody was busy.

There was something for everyone to do.

We had Boy Scouts here doing some Eagle Scout projects.

- My name is Zach Helms.

My troop is Troop 11.

And basically what we're doing for my Eagle Scout project is we're going to take the old used bed frames that the Escambia County Animal Shelter has used in the past.

We're going to basically refurbish them so that the dogs can use them for a very long time.

- I have much more volunteers than I thought I would have.

So I-- - Stressing out a little?

- A little bit.

- Welcome to my world.

- Yeah, a little bit.

- You got this down man.

This looks great.

It's amazing.

I'm glad you got more volunteers.

How many beds are you doing?

- 120.

- Everybody was working.

We had the scout troop here putting up the poles - That hole goes to the white one.

- I'm Seth Young from Troop 340 of Pensacola, Florida and I was looking for an eagle project today.

I brought my troop here.

We have a couple boys from our troop and then a couple that are from other troops, which is awesome.

Today we're gonna be making a sheltered area for the dogs and when they come out here they don't have to be in the sweltering heat.

They can come under this shading area.

I'm really happy that all these people came 'cause it really says something when the whole community comes to help this one area.

I really thank them for coming.

- The community involvement has been outstanding.

I mean almost 200 people signed up to volunteer at our shelter.

We wanna see them come back when it's all fixed up and interact with the cats and dogs that are here.

We're very grateful.

- Thank you ma'am.

Appreciate it.

- You know I was running around crazy.

I go into the lobby and here's this awesome volunteer who'd been killing himself all day with this pony of a dog and I was like, oh are you walking him?

And they said they were gonna take him home and I just wanted to cry.

I was like, really?

It was great.

- Once I seen him though, I knew he had to come home.

I'm like man, just love big dogs.

You know, he's just lovable, friendly.

- He was the cutest mush ball, awesome dog, barely fit in their car.

I'm not sure how they pack their family back in.

But that is one of the great things about Rescue Rebuild.

It's kind of another service I provide.

I bring in the volunteers.

We usually sneak a couple of dogs out on the way too.

- Can't wait to find a saddle.

- If I had any level of trepidation about anything that they were doing here, it was the paint job on the outside.

County buildings are typically very base-colored and it is bright.

- Is it too mellow?

- Yeah.

- Go to Lightning Bug?

- Yep.

- Take the yellow five-gallon back and tell 'em to crank it up to Lightning Bug.

- I think the whole goal was to make the shelter more fun and we're doing it inside, we need to bring that outside so people can see it from the street.

And it definitely does that.

- The day ends when you go to sleep.

So if you never go to sleep, it's still the same day.

- You know your foot is on your pizza, right?

- So I have a huge passion for animals.

I always have growing up.

I think that's another reason why I ended up with this group helping the shelters around all the nations.

Find a better world for pets.

- The sun has gone down on Day Two and we're still here.

We got a lot done today.

We got a lot of fencing done.

Our yard for dogs playing for life is just about wrapped up.

The tile is going down in the lobby and behind me we've got our posts in for our catio.

But we still have a lot left to do tonight.

So we just got a good meal and hopefully that'll get us going again here, get a second wind and get us through the night.

- So one of the things that really drew me to this area was just the good people of this community.

You know when I took over the shelter it had so much work to do and the community was all behind us and really supporting us.

Being awarded this grant, I just think it's such a great opportunity for the community, for everybody involved.

It's mostly for the animals at the shelter.

We have a pretty long length of stay for a lot of our animals.

So providing enrichment in better areas and also increasing the way we can adopt animals, is all gonna help their lives and hopefully shorten their length of stay.

But even while they're there make it much better.

- I got my dog here and I know that a lot of other people can find their dogs here as well so I had the opportunity to come.

Not doing anything so I decided it'd be a great time to volunteer.

- We are racing against the rain, literally.

There has to be enough time to let this paint dry back here.

As you can see it's not a tiny little painting area.

- We are going to probably put you out with the fencing crew 'cause we are desperately trying to get the fencing done before all this rain comes in.

- We just heard a giant crack of thunder and saw some lightning so unfortunately we have to pause with the fencing for right now.

Just metal and lightning doesn't go together.

- Hey.

I'm gonna be doing the purple door soon.

- My name is Laurie Frederick.

I am retired.

Maybe this is my ninth year.

- Laurie has been one of my best friends for years.

Works harder than most people that I have ever met in my life and seems gruff, but has a heart bigger than the planet.

- Hi there handsome.

- I mean I feel bad for all the animals in the shelter, but the cats especially 'cause they're usually trapped in such a small space.

So this is gonna give them a wonderful space.

I think they get more easily adopted because people can see their personalities.

- Last night we got a lot of rain so there was some flooding that happened over by the catio.

So we have to re-dig our trench, our drainage trench.

- Yeah that was a bit of an epic disappointment.

And you know, time to bounce back.

No pressure, right?

You know you've got three days left... - For me.

I had my fingers crossed but there was a little bit of, a little bit of nervous stomach.

- Alright, you know what, this is gonna be the last one.

- Oh my god, these are so great.

- This is a whole new shelter right now.

And it's super overwhelming but it's so exciting.

I can't--I already love my job but I can't wait to come to work and see how this so positively impacts what we're trying to do here.

- You know one of the things to try to get people in here is to let 'em know we're doing adoptions and we used to just be animal services.

So I think you're telling the story right here on the sign.

The sign's beautiful and just telling them it's an adoption center.

It's where you come to get your new friend.

- We came down to adopt a dog, which we found this weekend and fell in love with her.

So we basically came back every day until she was available to be adopted.

- You got a new family member?

- She's adorable.

- Oh, hi sweetheart.

- Her name's Cookie.

Well, thanks you all and good luck.

- Thank you very much.

That's the ultimate goal.

That's what we all are doing this for, is to find homes for all of these animals.

So everything we're doing is trying to bring people in to adopt and get them moved out.

So when we see this, we know we've been successful, at least a little bit.

We're a tiny, tiny link in the chain but you know, all of us working together... and that's what you get.

- News Radio 1620.

We are having so much fun.

It is the Pensacola expert panel.

I'm Wendy Summers and my expert is John representing Escapia County Animal Shelter.

Anything going on at the shelter?

- No, we have nothing going on at the shelter.

Actually they're doing this massive remodel on the shelter.

That's amazing.

And we brought Brenda with us this morning to tell you all about it.

- It's great.

John has been extremely patient.

We have destroyed everything in the shelter and are now trying to build it back up.

- What makes you decide to start doing this?

- Pensacola is a rough part of the animal welfare kingdom.

You're not in a major metro- politan, area but you're busy and you have a lot of the same problems that all the big cities have.

And so John has done an amazing job to turn that all around.

So I was super happy when we could award them with this grant.

- It was brought to us by people from our community.

They're the ones who applied for the grant and got it for us.

The community's come out to help just do this, volunteer to do the rebuild.

- You know, we want it to be fun and be a place that volunteers will come and wanna spend time just hanging out with the animals and socializing 'em and playing with them and, and hopefully of course bringing them home.

- Well Bryna, I can't thank you and your team enough for choosing Pensacola and Escambia County Animal Shelter and I just appreciate everything you're doing and all the volunteers, thank you all so much, too.

Right now it's time for news on News Radio 1620 FM 92.3.

- Welcome to my home away from home.

This is the Rescue Rebuild trailer.

Not real proud to say it right this second, but this is kind of my baby.

- Zach knows where everything is.

So if you need something and he says Hey, can you go get me this - Power tools over on this side so they're easy to find.

And then we have all of our hand tools here and then all of our storage bins up front are color coded.

And so when we have a volunteer working with us and they say, oh I need a three inch screw.

You can say go into the blue bins, - It's on the left side under this green thing, next to the yellow thing.

- So this kind of keeps us, keeps us going.

But it's always a challenge because we have to tow this thing all over the country with our truck.

- We also get to put some memories in that trailer too.

So lots of pictures in there from different trips from the last few years.

So to kind of see where we were at and see where we are now.

- So Marshall, one of my favorite volunteers during this project, he shows up on Monday.

- I'm retired now and I saw this in the paper or on Facebook and decided to sign up to come down.

I love animals and this is one way to help.

- And he has been here every day since.

You know, he's worked on the catio, he's helped tie wire ties, he's painted.

I mean he's done almost everything that all of us have done.

It's been crazy.

You can plug him in anywhere, he's got a great attitude and then he has this amazing tender side.

- And this is gonna let 'em get out and play and be themselves.

And you'll find out if you want a wildcat or if you want one that's laid back, you'll be able to tell that when they're outside playing.

When you can't really tell it now, except like that guy sleeps all day.

- You know, people like that are why I love this.

'Cause you meet so many cool people who have this amazing passion and just wanna plug it in and I love seeing that.

- So it's this transitioned into this It's just hard to tell when they're wet.

But the what this is, - So behind us is Lisa Looney, she's our resident artist.

She is gonna do the whole focal point of this lobby, which is this cool L-shaped wall and we'll see what she has in store for us.

But I know it's gonna be a great anchor point to our lobby.

- I think people are gonna feel more welcome by the beautiful colors instead of feeling so sterile and cold.

- But at the end of the day, what we do, I mean it just speaks to you.

It moves your soul, it just makes you feel so good about getting outta bed every day.

- We are a very close family, Bryna and Zach you know, we're all, we're all family on the road.

- You argue you love each other and at the end of the day it's just all fun.

- So when anybody tells me, oh I've got a week vacation, you know, where are you gonna be?

I'm like that just brings me to tears to think that there are that many people out there that are willing to do this.

Especially the ones that come back time and time again knowing what I'm gonna put them into.

Like I know I beat you, I yell at you.

And it's not because of anything other than the fact that like you guys know why you're here because this shelter has a lot of animals, it does a lot of stuff.

It, it needs our help.

And you're all here, you gave up your time and we're gonna make a difference here and it's gonna be awesome and I'm sorry I torture you and I'm sorry, but tomorrow and the next day are probably gonna be like maybe 18, maybe 20 hour days.

I don't know.

- We really are a family away from family.

I don't know that we all have that much in common in our other lives, but when we come here we just pull together as a group and make it happen.

- Love you all.

- Love you, love you.

- You ready guys?

- Hi, let's go.

We're late.

Everybody ready?

Let's go.

- This is the tough part.

I mean we're more than halfway through the project now and we're all just kind of stumbling out of bed and trying to make it to the coffee or to the energy drinks.

- We usually rent houses wherever we go.

So we're doing that here.

We have a big house, there's 12 of us on this project.

It's like dorm style life.

We have to share bathrooms, kitchens, share everything.

- It gets very tough.

You definitely see the great side of people and at times in the day you see the not so great side of people.

- Guys where are we at?

Hey, where are we at on painting James?

Gosh, where are we at?

- We have more yellow to do.

The purple's about done.

- We definitely get at each other's throats.

No doubt.

- So tonight's gonna be a late night guys.

We've been crapping out early like every night - We can hug it out and know that no feelings are hurt.

So we've got two dry days left, four days left in the project and so we're really struggling to get all the outdoor stuff done today.

We've got painting to do, we've got the catio to build.

We've kind of accepted that we're going to be in the rain this weekend a little bit, but we're gonna try to get as much done as we can so we can get volunteers inside and work on the indoor projects when it's actually raining.

- One of the great things about this whole renovation project was not just the renovations themselves but the other organizations and the things we're doing that are gonna be continuing on.

And one of those was getting Aimee Sadler here with her group Dogs Playing For Life, she's the founder of.

And Zach and Bryna built these great play yards for just that purpose.

- What do you think?

- I cannot believe that this is that same space that I saw you guys walk around and videotaping and it's such a great use of this space.

I think what's unique about Dogs Playing for Life is we created an educational service to teach people that weren't particularly comfortable with this concept about how to start incorporating playgroups into their standards of care.

We've got phenomenal coaches and teachers that are great with people and so we make it fun and to show immediate results.

- It was really informative.

The seminar just let you know How much more you can do with your time and how much more the dogs get out of it.

My name is Colleen, I am one of the senior kennel techs here at the shelter and this is just one more thing that we're getting to do.

A more enjoyable part of it, learning a little bit more about their personalities so it can help us get them into a better home.

- Okay, last day.

What do we gotta get done today?

- Lobby's huge.

We gotta get that done.

The catio is a debacle with all that water, so let's get them on that.

And then the cat colony room, that's our other big anchor, has to get done right now.

Okay, so we got a break in the rain.

Yeah.

Can you get those signs up before we get people soaking wet?

- Yeah, let's do it - Alright, let's keep going then.

- Alright, cool.

Hopefully tomorow we get some cats in here and they can start playing around.

- You guys got this?

- Yeah, no I got this.

Kristen came in midweek.

We love to kind of stagger people in because we get so tired, we need fresh blood, we need that invigoration and so now she's here to help finish up things and remind me about projects that I have completely forgotten about.

Thank you Miss Sound Baffle.

- So you know, we got a lot of excitement going on.

There's a ton of volunteers just like last weekend we got a ton of volunteers.

We're gonna have to work through it again today as you can see the lobby's trashed but we're gonna try to be open today and use the lobby to some degree.

We gotta keep these adoptions going.

- Zach Baker, paging Zach Baker - I start just feeling soreness everywhere.

My brain stops working, I start confusing measurements.

54 becomes 45 and now I've kind of bored too short and have to go cut a new one and I have to really push through at about that point.

- I ruined some cat cages.

- He ruined some cat cages.

- Found out I ruined some shelves and wasted a bunch of time on 'em yesterday.

- Everything he did yesterday for six hours was all for naught because the brackets are not gonna hold the weight of the shelf.

- Had some lunch.

That happens sometimes.

Pet the Zach Baker.

- Bryna is really tough and she makes us work hard and she makes us work long and she really pushes us to challenge ourselves and to learn more and to grow and become better builders and better people in general.

She's a really magical person.

- Okay, why do I have to do everything around here... - It is gonna be a super late night, got the headlamp on, I'm working outside cutting wood for this lobby cat room.

We've got a wall to build in there along with a bunch of painting.

We've got our double containment going in for our other cat room.

We've got sound baffling going in outside and then we're still trying to get our lobby done.

- We have that ribbon ceremony coming up and it's a hard set, planned.

And we had 12 hours to go.

When I walked through here it was scary.

There was stuff everywhere.

Nothing looked like it was complete, you know, it all had a look like it had a little bit more to go and some of it looked like finishing touches and some of it looked like they hadn't even started on it yet.

To me it looked like it was gonna take 12 hours to remove all the stuff and just get the path cleared.

- How's it going?

Thanks for staying late.

We appreciate it.

- Good to just see them pushing through, that they want to get this done.

Their energy levels are so high and I think they just take so much pride in what they do and how that makes you feel as an Escambia County resident and citizen, that people really want you to have this.

It's amazing.

- Usually the last couple days are the hardest of any project because the list is huge and we're at our tiredest and often we're trying to hit a deadline But once we see those animals getting into those spaces again, it's just totally worth all those challenges.

- It's amazing to think this room used to be two rooms and that it was just kennels on walls.

To think that we had people come and knock down the wall, you know, the fact that we did it so quickly within a week roughly, people worked really hard and I think these cats are gonna be so happy.

These guys are gonna find awesome loving homes 'cause they're gonna see 'em in a home environment.

The best we can give them in a shelter.

That's awesome.

- This face can only mean it's the last day that it's entirely too early and we still have some cleaning to do, but we are getting ready for our ribbon cutting.

So I'm super excited.

I'm just really tired and under- caffeinated at this point, but we're gonna get it done and be ready to go.

- To be honest, I didn't sleep well last night getting ready for this ribbon cutting this morning.

- There's just lots of little details and that's really what the last day is all about.

We had to get the cat colony room done.

We had to get the cat lobby room done.

The lobby still had some finishing work to do.

You're tired, it's, it's when you don't really wanna have an eye for detail, when you just wanna go take a nap, but you have to.

There were tools everywhere.

There were fence fittings everywhere.

There was pebbles from the gravel we put in everywhere.

There's mud everywhere, there's sawdust, there's mortar, there's tiles.

How are we ever gonna get this clean?

- That was a little scary.

I definitely had my doubts as to whether or not that deadline was gonna happen.

- I was prepared to say sorry we didn't get it all done.

We thought we were gonna make it.

And that was the thing today was getting them able to walk them through, let them see what we're doing, letting 'em see just how dramatically we've changed their building and how we've changed the lives of these animals that are coming through the shelter and how much community involvement we have.

It was a great combination of things that those commissioners and the county administrator would want to see and we got the opportunity to really show that off today.

- Rescue Rebuild is amazing.

I mean we had 15 of them from all around the country, as you said.

Not only that, they pulled together 400 volunteers from our community.

I mean that is buy-in right there and that's the sort of buy-in that we love to get and what's not to love.

You're helping animals.

I mean, it's a great win-win for our community.

Rescue Rebuild, Friends of the Escambia County Animals shelter - To see this transformation.

I mean, when I walked in this morning, I just burst out crying and, and there have been a lot of tears through this entire thing.

Happy tears.

- We're all happy.

- I don't even know the word to articulate it other than just absolutely amazing.

- I've heard many people say we set the bar so much higher for the Rescue Rebuild projects in the future for other projects in the future because of how the community responded and how our staff responded.

And I can't be more prouder than that.

- I love, love, love when we can do ribbon cuttings like this where there's people who never imagined in a million years that it would go through this kind of transformation this quickly.

- The softball team came out and saved our lives.

- And so to see it from their perspective, it really makes us stand back and look at it and go, wow, we did that.

And so it's super awesome.

- I haven't been to the beach yet and I'm not sure if I will, but I've really gotten to know the community just through the volunteers that have come out.

We've just seen an incredible spectrum of people that live here.

Everything from older folks all the way down to kids and, and just everyone in between is just excited to be here and working.

- But I'm always amazed that after one of these trips where you're just like, did I just survive bootcamp?

That they're like, when are we gonna do it again?

You know?

And you're just, it, it, it really, really, really just moves me incredibly.

- It's amazing to see what all the work we do can inspire to be done, even after we've left shelters, they've talked to other ones nearby and said, Hey, you know what, we did this this way, but you know what?

We can do it a bit easier and help you guys out just a little bit, just a little.

Add a sparkle to a place like this will go a million miles with these animals and getting them out.

- It's super inspiring to be around and I love being a part of this group and feeling like for doing something really great for these animals, - It's being able to really dig deep for something that you believe in and something that you love.

- It really hits you in the heart when you open the gate, you let the dog off leash and they just take off running around.

If you have like one dog in here, you could throw a ball for them.

Really, where else on this property before were they able to just throw a ball?

Just be a dog, just run around almost like they were in their own backyard.

- We exist for the purpose of adopting animals.

It's not just a place where animals stay until someone wants them.

It's a place where awesome animals are waiting for you to come get them.

- What we've left for their staff, I hope that feeling that they've been appreciated and that we did this so that they could do an even better job at what they're doing already, which is above and beyond awesome.

That feeling that they know somebody out there really cares about them.

I think that's really the gift that keeps giving, is knowing that we appreciate what they do every day.

She marked our trail up the backbone ridge How many times can one dog pee?

Keeps me high as an eagle when I'm on the skids I guess you gotta come down eventually Buddy I coulda gone that extra mile For an extra bark or an extra smile 'Cause I never felt so free It was just my dog and me - Petco Love Lost.

A national lost and found pet database can help.

Using image recognition technology so every pet can be back where they belong, - Oh my baby - home with the families that love them.

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