RENOVATION NEWS All operations (except the Thrift Shop) will remain at the shelter throughout the renovation. The actual operations of the shelter and clinic will be normal unless otherwise noted on our Home Page.

May, 2008
Wow things are happening fast. The entire back of the building has been ripped off- all the old, decrepit dog kennels from 1961- gone! Shown to the right is the back of the building as it looks now. The boarded-up doors lead to our small adoption rooms (the long skinny rooms filled with stainless steel cages). The blue tarp is where our dog iso runs used to be.

The outdoor kennel area that used to turn to a sheet of ice - GONE. To the right is what is left of the chain link runs- now just a heap of tangled steel. Some dogs would rub their noses raw against the old chain link, trying to gets pets from visitors. No more! There will be no chain link in the new building! Yeah!


Much has been happening in our old garage. To the left is what it looks like now. You can just barely see the old garage door opening in the center. The new walls being built are going to make up our new Maternity Room and new Dog Get Well Room. Our new Veterinary Treatment Center and 2 Kitty Get Well Rooms will also be in what used to be our garage (space limitations have forced us to steal this space and live without a garage in the new facility).

We are on schedule for the new Thrift Shop. If you have driven by this past weekend (May 4) you probably noticed that the Thrift Shop is framed and walls are up for the first floor. The second floor, to be our caretaker's residence, is made up of two modulars that will be delivered soon with an anticipated installation of May 13.

Exciting times! Please support our renovation - donate online over our secure server and choose "Building Fund." Thank you!


April, 2008 IT BEGINS!!!
It's been a long, long road, but finally the renovation has begun. Thank you so much to everyone for your patience. Due to new limitations on new sewer hookups to Two River Sewer, our sewer application had to go to the state sewer authority and the DEP for approval. Of course, this took a while!

JC and George from BurMarc Construction are working very hard to make up for lost time. The back of the building, where the old dog kennels were, are gone, demolished to make room for the new Adoption Center. Much site clearing has already taken place to make room for a state-required retention area and also for our new Thrift Shop.

Construction will happen in 2 phases. Phase 1 encompasses the old garage, dog kennels, vet tech room and thrift shop. When complete, this area will hold our new Stray area, Veterinary Care Center (including a new Maternity Room and Isolation Rooms for sick animals), a new Pet Pantry and best of all, our beautiful new Adoption Center.

Phase 2 is basically the front portions of the building- the front desk and administrative offices. When complete, there will be a new, beautiful Visitor Center, large Community Room, new Grooming Room (Bath and Beyond Salon), new laundry room with new, industrial quality machines (we do a lot of wash!), new public restrooms and new admin office space.

Our Construction Schedule has a 10 month interval:
August - Grand Opening of new Thrift Shop
October - Grand Opening of new Adoption Center (Phase 1 complete)
February - Project Completion!



Read all about our very exciting groundbreaking ceremony on our Events Page.

A functional, forward-looking design, a renovation desperately needed
A team of board members, volunteers and our Executive Director, Ursula Goetz, worked with architects Tim McCorry and Bob DeSantis of the firm Kaplan, Gaunt and DeSantis in Red Bank to come up with the perfect combination of form and function. Tim and Bob listened to all our concerns and have created an absolutely beautiful design that will markedly improve the lives of the pets in our care as well as the humans who care for them.


Above is a rendering of what our new facility is going to look like. Once the renovation is complete, we will no longer be "just" a shelter. We will be an Adoption Center- a light and bright, clean, odor-free, beautiful, pleasant and relaxing place for animals and humans. The theme of the renovation is "bring the outdoors in" - bright sunshine and a tranquil, park-like setting will set the tone for the new Adoption Center.

When you visit, you will enter a bright and airy Visitor Center, where you will be greeted by volunteers who will guide you to where you need to be. If you come to adopt, you will walk down a corridor to the back of the building, where an entire wall of windows will greet you. The Adoption Center will be filled with natural light, and the view out the back will be of trees and sky. In the back of the building there will be new trails for walking and there will be many doors that will allow access to those trails. Great for walking dogs!

The Adoption Center will be constructed so all the dogs are to the left and all the cats will be to the right. Exotics like rabbits and Guinea Pigs will have their own room. No more mixing of species!

A major goal of this renovation is to eliminate stress and disease for all pets in our care and the Adoption Center was specifically designed to do just that. For example in our current situation, every dog can smell, see and hear all of the other dogs. This is overwhelming for many of our canine residents, causing fear and anxiety.

In our new Adoption Center, dogs will be in "gazebos" (shown to the left), divided to hold 4 dogs each. The top of the gazebo is clear glass to let in natural light. Each dog will not be able to see the other dogs, and since each gazebo will have its own air circulation, they will not be able to smell them either. Noise will be significantly reduced. The dogs will be able to see a *few* other dogs so they will not be isolated. With smell and noise controlled the dogs will be much, much calmer and happier.


About half of the kitties waiting for adoption will live in gazebos holding 12 cats each, as shown to the right. Cats love to climb, and this setup is perfect for that. These cats will be able to see outside, which they will love! Like the dog gazebos, each kitty gazebo will have its own air circulation.

The rest of our cats will live in individual cages. While we originally wanted to go "cage-free", our research told us that some cats simply are not happy living with other cats and need their privacy. Also, once stray cats get past their 7 day holding period in our Stray Holding Area, they will need to move to individual cages in the Adoption Center for 4-6 weeks so we can assess their personalities and monitor their health. The cat Adoption Center is specifically designed to reduce disease by tight control of air flow and also by reducing stress. Studies show that less stress significantly reduces upper respiratory disease in shelter kitties, which in our current situation is almost impossible to control.

If you look behind the gazebos in each drawing, you can see the wall of windows that will go the entire length of the building. This part of the building faces North, perfect! Also, the back of the building is very park-like, full of trees and with plenty of room for walking trails.

Some of you may be wondering what became of the $10,000 Friskies Grant we won thanks to the efforts of hundreds of people who voted online every day. We have that money in the bank, waiting for the renovation. The money will be used to create a special room for FIV+ cats. Cats with FIV+ (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus) can lead long, healthy lives, but they should be kept apart from non-FIV+ since it is possible to transmit the disease through scratches that bleed and bites. They also benefit from a stress-free environment, so their Friskies room will be in the quietest part of the Kitty Adoption Center, and will have its own air handling to further reduce any stress. We thought it was a perfect way to spend the money so generously donated by Friskies.

So, why do we need a renovation?
In 1999, the Monmouth County SPCA decided they would no longer euthanize adoptable animals. Since then, over ten thousand lives have been saved. In order to succeed in our mission not to euthanize adoptable pets, it is vitally important that their stay with us is as stress-free as possible.

If this community agrees that keeping animals for however long it takes to find a home is the right thing to do, then it is our moral responsibility to house them humanely. Unfortunately, the conditions in our shelter today fall woefully short of that responsibility.

Most of the animal housing areas have not been updated in 30 years. Our shelter was built as temporary housing, animals who were here for "too long" were humanely euthanized to make room for the inevitable next pet. The shelter simply was not built to humanely house animals for more than a few weeks.

With the decision not to euthanize adoptable pets came new challenges to an organization that was already pushed to its limits. Our thirty-year-old facility, built to house 40 dogs and 60 cats, today serves as many as 75 dogs and 250 cats every day. Today, every room here, every square inch of available space is used as a makeshift home for a homeless dog, cat, even rabbit or guinea pig. We are even forced to house kitties in our staff lunchroom (shown to the right). The condition of our facility is hard on people as well as animals. A renovation that will enable us to provide improved conditions for the animals in our care and for the people who care for them is desperately needed.

The Emotional Life of Kitties
One consequence of not euthanizing adoptable pets is that our cat population in particular has exploded. Going from a population of 60 cats to over 250, something's gotta give. Shown to the left is what used to be our dog training and socialization room, where staff members could interact with shelter dogs in a more home-like setting. Now it's used to house over a hundred cats.

For most cats, life in a cage goes against every fiber of their being but the ever-burgeoning population of unwanted cats leaves little choice. Though this lifestyle goes against their very nature, at least in here, they're safe, well fed-and alive. Currently we have only one "Kitty Playroom" where 12-16 cats can live together, move about freely and have many comfy places to sleep and get privacy when they need it. We need more. After our renovation, over 100 cats will live in 10 different kitty playrooms and 80 will live in individual housing. The remaining 80-120 typically in our care are not ready for adoption, and will be in our new stray holding area or in veterinary care.

Probably the biggest improvement for our cats is that they no longer will have to listen to the constant barking from the dogs. Right now, most of our cats are located just a few feet from the dog kennel. During the day, the barking is nonstop. The noise and smell is very stressful for cats. Research tells us that stressed-out cats = sick cats. Stress is a major cause of upper respiratory disease, and we see that in many of our cats now. In our new Adoption Center, cats will have their own "wing", separate from the dogs, and will have their own air circulation. Shelters who have improved living conditions for cats have seen an exponential decrease in upper respiratory disease and we look forward to that for our kitties as well!

No More Doggie Jails!
Age and overpopulation have taken a toll on the kennel area where the dogs are kept. With only forty dogs, the noise level in here was once tolerable. Today, with seventy dogs barking, the noise reverberating from the cement walls and ceiling is unbearable. The adverse effects of this constant barrage of deafening noise on the psyches of shelter dogs cannot be overstated. It makes them nervous, fearful and anxiety-ridden during every waking hour of every day.




Because of the way the cages were built, the bigger dogs are able to see and taunt each other all day long. This constant bickering with doggie neighbors can be devastating to their emotional health. Sadly, it's not uncommon for a perfectly normal dog to become acutely fearful or even aggressive after enduring months upon months of living in this incredibly stressful environment.


The new dog Adoption Center will have no more cages, no more chain link. Instead, dogs will live in individual glass rooms, much like that shown to the right. This dog is waiting for his new home at Tompkins County SPCA in Ithaca, New York. We visited Tompkins to learn all about its state-of-the-art Adoption Center. One thing we learned- if you control the smells that circulate amongst the dogs, they get much calmer. We walked into Tompkins to hear- silence! No barking! Having glass enclosures instead of caging and having very good air handling will mean a much quieter environment at our shelter. Also, no smell! Won't that be nice? This design is also much easier to clean and disinfect, keeping disease at bay. Most importantly, dogs will no longer be able to bicker and taunt each other. Their emotional health will remain intact, the dogs will be calm and happy!

We will also have new and improved dog walking trails that will be easy to get to from the Adoption Center, making walking the dogs easier and more enjoyable.

Finally, our dog obedience training program will be able to thrive. Since our training room is currently full of cats, dog training can only happen outdoors and so cannot be offered in bad weather. Did you know that dogs who have been through obedience training are significantly more likely to stay in their homes and not be returned to a shelter? While this seems like a no-brainer, reasons people cite for not going though training are cost and convenience. In order to be successful in our mission not to euthanize, it is vital that we provide dog obedience training and there is a large multi-purpose room planned in the new renovation that will enable us to offer an expanded dog training program as well as expanded Humane Education programs.

The forgotten ones- Rabbits, Guinea Pigs and other small animals
Many people do not know that we care for many species, not just canines and felines. We always have a small population of rabbits, Guinea Pigs, hamsters, gerbils, birds... even a reptile or two. Became of overpopulation, these creatures often are shunted to the side, put in any available space. This means gerbils are close to cats, shy rabbits are in the middle of the bustling and noisy lobby. Cages are stacked upon cages. Not only is this stressful for the animals, this poor presentation hinders their adoption.

Our new Adoption Center will provide a special place for these "exotics", a place of their own where they will not be stared at by creatures who want to eat them, away from the hustle and bustle. They will live in specially-designed exotic cages, to reduce their stress and enhance their adoptability.


Veterinary Care
Tending to the medical needs of animals at the Monmouth County SPCA are veterinary technicians. Their work area was designed to accommodate one vet tech but the increased animal population here now requires a staff of two to three on duty at any given time. And this woefully inadequate space shown to the right is where they all work. If Stacy stretched out her arms, they would touch both walls, that is how narrow this space is. There is also not enough room for sick animals in the vet tech area. Often, tiny kittens or baby birds are kept in a crate on a electric blanket on the table in the vet tech area, since there is no where to put them.

Our new vet tech area will have a maternity room for nursing moms, tiny kittens and puppies, and other fragile creatures who need care. We will have separate isolation areas for ailing dogs and cats, away from noise and with separate air handling, all of which will enable them to get better faster and will stop disease from spreading.

How You Can Help

In order to complete this project, we will need plenty of help. We need:

1. MONEY! To build the new pet areas right will be very expensive. Two things that are desperately needed to insure a safe, disease-free, stress-free and odor-free environment are special flooring and special air handling systems. Also, building dog and cat rooms with glass instead of bars costs more. We want to do this renovation right, and to do that we need your help. To make a donation, please send a check to MCSPCA with "for renovation fund" in the memo section to 260 Wall Street, Eatontown, NJ 07724. Or, donate online over our secure server and choose "Building Renovation fund.". Thank you!

2. Donate your time! We will need a lot of people-hours in the coming months. If you have some spare time and want to volunteer to help on our Capital Campaign, please email Laurie.

Any questions about the renovation? Email Laurie!