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The LaGrange Animal Shelter officially broke ground Thursday on its new puppy room after receiving a $20,000 donation from the Petco Foundation

“We applied for the grant a couple of months ago to help remodel the puppy room,” LaGrange Animal Services Supervisor Chris Bussey said.

A statewide law changed a regulation for animal shelter’ that no longer allows puppies to be held in large crates.

“A large crate would be like a classic caged kennel,” Busseysaid. “Like the typical ones that citizens keep their puppies in. We are no longer allowed to use them at all.”

The room will include 17 individual puppy pens for small puppies and nursing mothers.

“It will have plumbing, similar to what we have for large dogs,” Bussey said. “It will be a little nicer and more room for small puppies to where they can’t escape. It will allow room for mom dogs to be with her puppies as well.”

Bussey said he was shocked when he heard the animal shelter received the grant.

“I didn’t expect to hear back from them, especially with the coronavirus,” Bussey said. “We applied for the grant at the end of 2019.”

Construction is expected to begin in the next several weeks with a completion date expected in the fall of 2020.

“We filled out the paperwork and then that was that,” Bussey said. “This will be help build a nice sized pen for the puppies to move around in.”

Bussey said the remodel of the puppy room will also have an impact on the entire shelter.

“We will be able to move more puppies in there and not have them in our adult kennels for other dogs,” Bussey said. “It will allow us to use space in our other individual kennels. We will just have more space in general. We were pretty excited to get this donation. We are thankful for the Petco Foundation for the grant and for helping us make our rescues easier.”

Currently, the shelter is at an 85 percent save rate.

For information about animal adoptions, call (706) 298-3606 or email njohnson2@lagrangega.org or cbussey@lagrangega.org.  The LaGrange Animal Services building is at 1390 Orchard Hill Road in LaGrange.