Storm damages brand-new dog park at Kent County Animal Shelter

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Just a week and a half after celebrating its grand opening, the Kent County Animal Shelter has closed its new animal shelter due to storm damage.

The 44,000-square-foot fenced outdoor expansion was a project the shelter had been working on for a couple of years. Paid for with funds from the Marie B. Schipper Trust , which donated $90,000 in 2023, the dog park is located next to the shelter at 740 Fuller Ave. near I-196 and has a raised platform, a tire obstacle course, old tree stumps and more for shelter dogs’ enrichment.

“The dogs have been having a great time utilizing it,” Angela Hollinshead, the Kent County Animal Shelter director, told News 8. “It provides a level of enrichment for our shelter dogs that we can’t provide anywhere else. It allows them to dig in the dirt, it allows them to sniff out where the squirrels have been and it … allows them to do all the things that dogs really just love to do.”

But on Tuesday, storms and high winds knocked down two good-sized trees, damaging the fencing around the park. All the dogs and staff were inside at the time, and no one was hurt.

Still, the dogs can’t use the park until it’s fixed.

The team had anticipated the possibility of one of the trees surrounding the park falling, and had built in a large gate in the back to let in equipment.

“We’re just really disappointed that we’re doing that so soon after opening the park,” Hollinshead said.

Animal shelter staff are working with the county’s facilities team to get the trees removed, and will then bring a fencing company to get the fencing repaired. It’s too soon to say how quickly the park will get fixed up and ready for dogs again, Hollinshead said.

“We are hoping that we can get our park repaired as soon as possible,” she said. “It is a really important enrichment tool for the dogs. … We have several dogs that have used it since we opened it, who enjoy it and are probably going to be disappointed they’re going to have to wait a little bit before we can turn them back loose in it. So fingers crossed we can get the trees removed quickly and get the fencing company out and get those repairs taken care of.”

There is a silver lining: One of the trees that fell could be kept in the park for the dogs to use.

“That is a really sizable tree that’s down in there,” Hollinshead said. “There’s an option really for us to potentially leave it there, because it is situated in the middle of the park, and that can be used for enrichment. The dogs can jump on it, climb over it, dig underneath it, so we may have them trim all the limbs off it and make it safe and potentially just leave it there as a permanent fixture.”

Those types of activities decrease the stress levels for shelter dogs, which are living in a pretty stressful environment.

For the last several weeks, that environment has been at or near capacity.

“Yesterday we were at capacity in a sense that we had no more open dog kennels. We were starting to find unique places to house dogs in our building,” Hollinshead said. “We do that really to ensure that we have enough space for the animals coming in.”

Animal control and local law enforcement bring animals in every day, and shelter staff don’t have control over how many animals they take in.

As the team faces high capacity levels, they’re offering an adoption special and have reached out to partner organizations to get some of the animals into other shelters or humane societies.

Inflation and the housing crisis are driving the high capacity levels, she said, adding that homelessness or housing instability are the main reasons people give when they surrender a pet.

While it hasn’t reached pre-pandemic numbers, the shelter — and shelters throughout the community — have seen an increase each year.

“We anticipate that we’re probably going to be at or near capacity for the remainder of the summer,” Hollinshead said. “This is not just a Kent County issue. This is a state and a national crisis with shelters right now. A lot of shelters are seeing really high intake numbers. Adoptions are a little bit lower than what we would expect for this time of year, so it’s something that I think a lot of organizations right now are struggling with.”

If anyone is looking to adopt a pet, now is the time.

“We have a lot of really great animals ready for adoption ,” Hollinshead said.

Adopting from the Kent County Animal Shelter is easy, she said, and staff work with those who are interested to make sure a dog is a good fit for their home. The goal is a lifelong placement, Hollinshead explained, so staff make sure those interested understand everything about the animal’s behaviors and potential medical care.

For more information on adopting a pet from KCAS, visit the organization’s website or call 616.632.7300.

If you can’t adopt, you can also help the shelter by donating things like food, toys or treats, setting up small monthly monetary donations or setting up an estate donation, like the one that funded the dog park.

“We have a laundry list of projects that we would love to take care of and a lot of those are funded through donations,” Hollinshead said.

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