Home for Life Shelter Spotlight
May 31, 2010 by Paris Permenter and John Bigley
Filed under News
Thanks to a long-time public relations contact, we recently discovered a unique animal shelter in Wisconsin: Home for Life®. Here, cats and dogs with special needs which prevent them from finding traditional adoption are given a permanent home in a loving environment.
The guiding philosophy behind the Home for Life® is to create another alternative beyond the usual adoption or euthanasia for animals which are capable of living a quality life. Whether stigmatized by temperament, handicap, treatable disease, or advanced age, cats and dogs are welcomed into a lifetime home.
Some of the Home’s residents include former military and law enforcement dogs, cats and dogs with mobility problems, animals rescued from abusive homes, blind animals, and cats diagnosed with feline leukemia.
The Home for Life® sanctuary is located on farmland on Wisconsin’s Apple River and was built from the ground up to create an environment to insure a quality life for the animals. Facilities include grooming salons, kitchen, laundry, and food storage space. Separate living quarters for dogs and cats feature heat and air conditioning, large windows and skylights, comfortable beds and futons, and free access to outdoor runs. For dogs, there is also a large fenced “bliss area” where dogs can run and play off-leash. The cattery includes a special facility, the Porsche and Mercedes Steffens Oasis for Feline Leukemia Cats.
Some of the Home for Life® animals participate in community outreach programs, passing on the empathy they’ve found to humans in need. The Renaissance Project pairs dogs with at-risk teenagers while the Sit*Stay*Heal initiative introduces HFL pets to pediatric and adult victims of cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and other long-term diseases. The Pet Peace Corps promotes peaceful conflict resolution to families subjected to domestic violence. Other HFL outreach programs serve retirement home residents and military veterans by promoting interaction with HFL’s “pet ambassadors.”
Home for Life® is intended to be a prototype, serving as a model for future long-time sanctuaries around the country, offering a better life for special-needs pets.
For more information:
- visit www.homeforlife.org
Also See:
- Home for Life resident Wyley, Dog of the Day
- Home for Life resident, August, Cat of the Day
-photos by Mark Luinenburg courtesy of Home for Life®
About Paris Permenter and John Bigley
DogTipper publishers Paris Permenter and John Bigley are a husband-wife team of full-time writers. The couple has authored over two dozen books and 2,500+ magazine articles.
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