At the June 9th Town Council meeting, town manager Jeff Jones updated the town on all the capital improvement projects underway in the town. Our animal shelter has been at capacity for some time now, like most shelters across the Dallas metro area. This is partly because of our town’s location close to highway 30 and 80, which may bring out-of-towners who abandon their pets, but Dallas CultureMap writes that this is really a symptom of the dog overpopulation crisis.
Before the new animal shelter could be built, the town needed to figure out the water situation at the town’s pumping station, adjacent to where the new shelter will be. The Riverstone pumping station at 121 Planters Rd is being upgraded with an $800,000 improvement to supply water to the town’s nearly 9,000 residents. The bigger pump capacity (3.5 million GST) requires bigger ground tanks, which will preserve pressure in the water lines in case of a power supply loss, or a disruption in the external water supply to the pumping station. Now that the new ground tanks have been planned out, the town knows how much room is left over on that site for the animal shelter.
One of the goals of Sunnyvale’s animal control staff is to get certified as a “no-kill” shelter. No-kill doesn’t mean the shelter never euthanizes an animal, but it means the shelter prioritizes placement of the animal whenever possible, and it’s a very important designation to many people who care about animals. To get certified as no-kill, the shelter needs to reach a 90% “live release” rate. Today, the shelter has a 89% live release rate (so close!). A new, nice facility which doesn’t look like a prison should help achieve that live release rate: it reduces the stress on animals, making them less likely to act out and more suitable for adoption.
The town has allocated $500,000 to build the new animal shelter, and contracted with Ron Hobbs, an architect who has experience designing animal shelters across North Texas, to create the design. The shelter’s expected to complete sometime in 2026, but by the end of this summer the town should know what it will look like. The design will get input from shelter staff and volunteers, but not the general public, so if you have strong feelings about the shelter’s direction make sure you talk to their staff (or visit the existing shelter at 371 Long Creek Rd) this summer!
