2025 at Humane Society of Sumter County was a challenging, busy, and yet satisfying year. It started with our staff moving into a newly renovated triple-wide modular office that was purchased in 2022 and transported to the property. Numerous improvements to the campus were made, all made possible by the support of our donors.
- The previous office space was renovated by volunteers and repurposed into our new “Life Center” consisting of an animal intake/evaluation room, a cat quarantine room, a “real-life” room where volunteers and potential adopters can spend quiet time with our dogs and cats.
- A new 6,000 square foot dog play yard with a 2,100 square foot pavilion and 6-ft fence were furnished by a long-time repeat donor and our neighbors Heart of Florida and Trademark Metals Recycling. We are so grateful for it, as are the dogs and volunteers.
- Catty Shack got a new roof, and new flooring was donated by The Floor Shoppe and installed by volunteers.
- A new small dog/puppy play yard was built, now giving us seven dedicated play yards.
- Fans were added to all the outdoor dog kennels and to three dog play yard pavilions to provide comfort.
- The laundry area was enclosed, insulated and air-conditioned.
These improvements would not have been possible without the generosity of our donors.
We assisted nearly 600 families with low-cost spay/neuter and pet food assistance. 571 cats and 245 dogs found new homes. An unusual number of our dogs were heartworm positive and were treated at great expense. We are working very hard to reduce the average length of stay of our dogs and cats, which in turn allows us to take in more.
We were fortunate to have a quiet hurricane season, relieving staff and volunteers from the stress of evacuating our dogs and cats from the property because none of our buildings are hurricane-rated. We must rely on the community to foster our animals during extreme weather. This is a situation we hope to address sooner rather than later.
I am excited to announce a capital campaign to build a 6,000 square foot hurricane-rated building that will be the new home of our dogs and space for our cats during severe storms. The front 1/3 of the building will consist of a multi-purpose room for dog training, an indoor dog play area during very hot or cold and rainy days, meet and greets with potential adopters, and anything else we can think of. There will also be an animal intake/evaluation room, an isolation room, a room to house cats during hurricanes, rest room, a food preparation room and pet care room with a bathing station and laundry facilities. The rear 2/3 of the building will contain 30 kennels of various sizes. Twenty-two kennels will have adjoining covered, outdoor kennels separated by an access door. There will be eight interior kennels as well as an indoor play area. The kennel area will be climate-controlled so the dogs can be comfortable inside during hot Florida days. There is room to expand the building to provide twenty additional indoor and outdoor kennels for a total of 50.
We are also considering an alternative kennel area using shipping containers, which provide the flexibility of adding kennel space as we need it and as funds are available. This version will give us up to 63 indoor kennels, all of them with adjoining outside, covered kennels. Additionally, this alternate design can provide a quarantine area since each pod of kennels will have its own air handling.
We cannot do this project alone. We will need to rely on the generosity of our Sumter County community.
(Renderings of future 6,000 square foot canine building (red arrow is pointing at it)
Floorplan of future canine building
Tom Diss is the Board Chairman of the Humane Society of Sumter County.
