Doc Mills announced the plans' approval in this letter after the March 30 Board meeting:

Hello Dawson County Humane Society faithful,

Tonight the Board approved the attached draft of shelter plans (right) as the final version. The architect and engineer will now proceed with completing the planning for construction. This we hope will be completed before the middle of the year. We are searching for contractors and project managers interested in bidding on the project.

We also voted to accept the offer of a line of credit to cover the portion (approximately half) of the costs that we don't have money for, yet. The lender wishes to remain anonymous, but God bless the heart behind the offer!

Brenda Lee has been voted in as the newest member of the Board of Directors. Brenda has hit the ground running as she takes the reins of the Corporate Sponsorship Program.

If you have been waiting for this stage of the project to come before you get involved, guess what? It's here. This animal shelter is going to be on the ground and open before the end of the year. It isn't going to be an animal warehouse in the industrial section of town. It is going to be a halfway house for temporarily displaced pets on a gorgeous piece of property. If you or anyone you know wants an opportunity to be a part of a beautiful, positive community project, then you need to join us now. We have various levels of support with corresponding levels of recognition available in our Corporate Sponsorship Program.

If you have been waiting for physical proof that our animal shelter project was "for real" before you let loose of your donation dollars, then keep your eyes and ears peeled for the groundbreaking celebration in the middle of this year. We have a line of credit to fall back on, but we want to finish this project debt free. You can make that possible, and Dawson County's first animal shelter is "for real".

Doc Mills

Below is some additional information about the shelter, from previous meetings.

Peter Hill, the architect designing our animal shelter, presented a revised drawing of the design.  We now have architect's drawings of both the inside and outside of the new building.

The interior design was updated as well (see picture below).  Space was transferred from the "human" side of the structure over to the "animal" side. The Isolation Room was enlarged. This is where diseased animals or pets needing extra privacy would be kept. Most of the previously interior dog kennels were moved to the front wall. This gives the pets easy access to fresh air and reduces labor necessary to walk dogs from totally indoor kennels out for fresh air. The rooms that were previously on the front wall switched places with the kennels. The Stray Ward is where all cats and small dogs go from the Animal Control truck. When they finish their quarantine period there, the adoptable cats go to the Cat Ward and the small dogs go to the Adoption Ward. Thanks to Nancy Noblin and her additional designated gift from last Thursday's Board meeting, the Cat Ward will have a Solarium built onto the end of the room for an exercise/play area. The few totally interior kennels at the left end of the picture are "high security" kennels for hard to handle dogs.

Special design features will minimize human contact to a bare minimum for security risk dogs. Kennels will typically be 3 feet wide with a few 4-foot wide kennels placed around in different areas for the giant breed dogs. All the kennels along the back wall are for dogs in quarantine, freshly off the Animal Control truck. On the exterior of the front of the building, double-wide, 6-foot kennels will service two interior 3-foot wide kennels. This will effectively reduce the number of dogs out in front of the building at any one time, reducing the noise for people approaching the front to enter the shelter. The dogs in this area are all adoptable dogs that are theoretically disease-free, so sharing space will involve less risk. The wavy wall out front is an effort to shield the exterior kennels from approaching people, again for noise and aesthetic reasons. This may be a "memorial" wall with special engraved bricks in honor of people or pets.

We are very close to beginning construction, perhaps as soon as June. We must still find a contractor or project manager. Conversation during our next Board meeting may lead to final resolution of financing considerations very soon. The money is not all "in the bank", approximately half must be borrowed. Donations of money and construction services are still essential. Less money borrowed and less interest paid leads to more lives saved. How? Phase II is already on the drawing board. More space to save more lives. Until aggressive spay/neuter action reduces the number of strays, more space will be necessary to house the strays. Don't think for a moment that our work is "nearly done" or the "stray animal problem is nearly solved". Thank you for your help and support and keep up the good fight!

Peter Hill has done a wonderful job with the design, and we are so grateful to have his services available to us on the Board. Enjoy the view and the dream!

And thanks - A survey of the property for our new shelter was completed by Fred Youngman.  Daniel Centofanti of Mill Creek Environmental Services is working on a site plan.  Peter Hill of HDA Architects, Inc is designing the structure. Kurt Krattinger of Landlovers of Georgia has done considerable brush clearing at the site. Thanks to these and other kind donors and volunteers, things are moving along well.