San Francisco SPCA

I’m away from HAWS for the week, but definitely not away from animals. Each year I travel to a different city to attend the annual Association of Pet Dog Trainers Conference. This year it’s in San Francisco – a city I’ve never visited before.

A lot of shelter employees like to visit shelters in other areas out of curiosity to see what others in the sheltering world are doing. The San Francisco SPCA is fairly well known for having a state of the art, beautiful facility – with housing for the animals that is just as nice as the Marriot where I’m staying this week. I was interested to see if they actually lived up to all the hype.

I honestly have never seen such a gorgeous place for dogs and cats. The animals don’t stay in caging, but in rooms with glass windows and doors – honestly they were really more like suites. Most of the dogs and cats shared space with another of the same species, but they had so much space they really didn’t seem to mind. The dog rooms were about 8 by 8 feet, and the cat rooms only a little smaller. Most of the rooms were decorated with wall hangings, and had several beds. Some of the rooms even had TV!

Here’s a video of a cat watching a squirrel DVD.