The Pet Tree House - Where Pets Are Family Too : Two Major DC Animal Shelters Merged to Create the Biggest Shelter in the Country The Pet Tree House - Where Pets Are Family Too : Two Major DC Animal Shelters Merged to Create the Biggest Shelter in the Country

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Two Major DC Animal Shelters Merged to Create the Biggest Shelter in the Country


The Washington Humane Society shelter, a District-owned building on New York Avenue, Northeast, looks every bit the old-school pound—concrete floors, chain-link cages, lots of barking dogs. Washington Animal Rescue League, near Manor Park in Northwest DC, feels like a pet spa—soothing music pipes in, a miniature waterfall gurgles, quiet dogs relax in frosted-glass enclosures.

If that’s all you know of the two groups, the decision they made in February to merge—into an organization whose scope is unmatched by any other humane society in a major US city—might seem odd. But the outward differences don’t indicate philosophical ones. Both were longtime local institutions: The Washington Humane Society was founded in 1870, the Washington Animal Rescue League in 1914. Both boasted low euthanasia rates, with each saving roughly 90 percent of its animals. And they worked together for years, with WHS often sending dogs and cats to WARL when it was over capacity.


To read more on this story, click here: Two Major DC Animal Shelters Merged to Create the Biggest Shelter in the Country



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