Story and photos by Victoria Stephens
The city of Moore celebrated the grand opening of its new $8.2 million animal shelter on April 10, 2024.
The proposition to build the facility was approved in 2021, and Moore residents and the animal-welfare staff say it was years in the making.
The new Moore Animal Shelter is east of Interstate 35 and south of Southwest 34th Street. The building is more than 15,000 square feet, almost 12,000 square feet larger than the previous facility, which housed the shelter for more than 20 years. The new facility features an adoption lobby, quarantine rooms, medical suite, food preparation area, laundry room, sally port, administrative offices, multipurpose training room, and staff break room. “It’s been a long time coming,” adoption center coordinator Samantha Philips said.
“It’s something that has been talked about since I started, and we finally got it to go up for a vote and it got approved, which we were really excited about. We desperately needed it. We grew out of our old shelter a long time ago, and it was built before a lot of the shelter standards were put in place, so it wasn’t really set up to care for the animals the way we are supposed to.”
With a growing human population in Moore, the shelter’s animal population has grown as well. The city’s population went from 55,081 in 2010 to 63,223 in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The city’s old animal facility housed 29 dogs and nine cats. The new shelter has an adoption capacity of 66 dogs and 28 cats and an animal hold capacity of 48 dogs and 30 cats.
“There is a huge need for this shelter. The way the population in Moore is growing, we needed to match that. Hopefully, with this new facility, we will be able to go many more years with the population growth,” said supervisor animal-control officer John Fryrear.
Keeping Animals Safe and Healthy
The new shelter is set up to minimize the spread of disease among the animal population housed there. The facility has two separate sides, one for strays and one for adoptions. Strays are kept on a
five-day hold while the staff searches for the owners. If owners do not claim the animals, they are evaluated by a veterinarian, administered vaccines, and spayed or neutered if needed before they are moved to the adoption side.
“We had no way to prevent cross-contamination,” Phllips said. “Our strays and our adoptable pets were all together. Here, everything is separated, so if we have any sick animals come in, we will have a way to quarantine them.”
Moore residents who visit the stray side of the facility in search of lost pets are not allowed to then go to the other side to see adoptable pets, and vice versa. Those measures are to protect the health of the shelter’s animal population. Staff members encourage anyone who has found a stray to call first because they might find the owner before the animal needs to visit the stray-animal hold.
Exploring Moore Pawsabilities
The Moore Shelter is unique in that it has a very active 501(c)(3) nonprofit group called Moore Pawsabilities Friends of the Moore Animal Shelter that provides volunteers and monetary assistance to help cover medical procedures not covered by the shelter. The shelter recently had a Great Pyrenees who had been hit by a car. The accident completely tore his hip out
of place. Through Moore Pawsabilities, he could have surgery.
June Myers, president of Moore Pawsabilities, started to volunteer at the shelter in 2010. In 2012, the 501(c)(3) was formed to help support the shelter. “Otherwise, those animals would have been put down, so we have saved a lot of lives,” Myers said.
Staff members at the shelter certainly have a soft spot for furry friends. About six years ago, a dog came in with a litter of puppies. After her puppies were adopted, she mothered four more puppies that were brought to the shelter. The shelter staff members have adopted her as their shelter dog and named her Mama Dog.
They also have a shelter snake named Nagini after the Harry Potter character. The ball python was found in a hotel and went unclaimed.
The adoption fee at the Moore Animal Shelter is $70. Pet licenses are $5 if the animal is spayed or neutered and $10 if it is not.
For more information about the shelter, visit https://www.cityofmoore.com/departments/animal-welfare. To become a volunteer or to donate to Moore Pawsabilities, follow the group on Facebook (@moorepawsabilities) or email [email protected].
