Ben Madilynn
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WPTA) – Animals were officially moved into the new Humane Fort Wayne building on Leesburg Road.
Over 40 cats and dogs are now in the new facility. The animals had a police escort from Humane Fort Wayne’s old Hanna Street location to Leesburg Road.
Humane Fort Wayne’s community relations manager, Melissa Gibson, says the moment they brought the first dog into the new building meant the world to them.
“We’re all emotional about it because to see the first little paw prints wander in here and know that that’s a kickoff and a start to just a whole new chapter,” says Gibson.
She also tells us they have been waiting for that moment for years.
“Realistically Hanna Street, our former shelter was never actually set up as a shelter, it was a retrofitted building so in reality it’s like this has been 50 years in the making for us to have a facility that’s ours and set up for what we do and the needs for the animals and it’s fantastic,” says Gibson.
With the expansion, Humane Fort Wayne is hoping to save even more animals.
“We’ve got twice as much room for dogs, almost three times as much space for cats so fingers crossed we’re going to go from doing about 2,000 adoptions a year to close to 5,000 so 3,000 more lives a year saved out of this building,” says Gibson.
Gibson also says they’re going to take the rest of the week to let the animals get acclimated to the new facility and to let staff members get familiar with everything.
The Leesburg Road location opens to the public officially on September 3.
To stay up to date on the move, you can follow Humane Fort Wayne on Facebook.
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