Thomas Crone
Without getting into the gritty details, the St. Louis City Animal Pound—often simply referred to as “Gasconade,” after the street on which it was located—closed its doors last year. After a period of organizational filtering, two different groups split up the primary responsibility of caring for abandoned and rescued animals inside the city limits: Stray Rescue’s there for the dogs and Animal House tends to the cats. As it’s turned out, their shelters are within walking distance of one another, in unused midtown warehouses.
Located a long stone’s throw from the busy intersection of Jefferson and Highway 40, the Animal House is found in a space that was long a part of A.G. Edwards’ vast neighborhood real estate holdings. It splits the new home with Metro Animal Resource Services; that group, led by Val Schweickhardt, primarily tends to feral cat colonies in the city, doing a bang-up job of reducing the large groups of cats that can take over a city block or alley if left to breed with impunity.
The Animal House, meanwhile, works on housing strays, especially kittens and and family groups, with the goal of getting them adopted.
As you’d guess, this past week’s weather hasn’t made the job any easier, though Animal House executive director Brandyn Jones is generally found there every day of the week anyway, as she’s only got a small, part-time staff and few dedicated volunteers to help with the daily necessities. Cage cleaning, feeding and watering, making sure that ill cats get medicines... all of these are things are required no matter the snow’s inch-count outside. Unlike the old pound, which got increasingly rough-around-the-edges as years went by, the Animal House space is a study in calm and cleanliness.
Though 100-plus cats are currently found onsite, it’s a rather peaceful spot, save for all that meowing. Rows of adult cats take up a couple zones while young moms and their offspring make up their own section a few dozen paces away. New arrivals hold down another zone and a sick bay is found in an old office space. Next to that sick bay is the center’s hoped-for future: a half-dozen cats live in that “community room,” where a good-natured mix of friends have taken up residence.
Eventually, Jones and crew hope to adopt even those cats, of course, no matter how well-heeled they are in their communal digs. Already, there’s an effort to create play areas for youngsters, using old office furniture for walls. With time and some additional funding, more rooms will get built, which will help socialize the Animal House collective, giving the animals more of a ready-to-adopt attitude. As it is, all the basic needs are being met, in an environment that’s less than a year old and is still taking shape; in fact, keeping the space as ecologically sound as possible is one of the express goals of the Animal House mission.
Shelter hours and basic information can all be found at the group’s website (animalhousefund.org). On their front page, you can also get info on the group’s next fundraiser, a March 5 trivia night. And if you just drop by the shelter and want a tip on a really super-cool cat, go to the community room and check out Tiki. He’s fully-grown, but is just a wisp of a cat, perfect for someone who wants a li’l pal, who’s not going to grow into the size of an overstuffed football. Tiki really is pretty great. If only, if only, if only...
