Peninsula Humane Society Buys Land To Shelter Animals That Don't Get Adopted

LA HONDA (KPIX 5) -- The Peninsula Humane Society has come up with an ambitious plan to provide a home for rescue animals with nowhere else to go.

Drop by the shelter and you can find plenty of dogs up for adoption. Benny is one of them--his worst habit is his tendency to destroy toys. But the real challenge for shelters like PHS is not finding homes for dogs like Benny, it's finding homes for pets that really don't have a suitable place to go.

"They're animals that could live a great life. But I'm just not going to likely find a home because of the extreme health or extreme behavior," said Director Ken White. He says that finding a refuge for those animals has become the last great challenge for shelters that want to give every animal the opportunity to live. "

This is the last big piece to the puzzle," White said.

And it's a very big piece, indeed. 261 acres of land, the exact location of which has not been disclosed, but the Society has announced that it's up in the hills around La Honda.

"It's big pasture land, open space," White explains. "We envision walking trails for the dogs to just get out and play. [En]vision large fenced in areas for the cats to hide play and jump."

The land was bought from an anonymous private seller at what's described as a fair, maybe even friendly price, but it wasn't cheap. "Donors came forward to help with this," White said. "And we are 100 percent confident that our community will come forward now to raise the funds to build it and to keep it [in] operation."

In recent years, some animal sanctuaries in the Bay Area have been at risk of closing because of increased financial pressures. White says he feels fortunate to have found the land and a solution that has escaped so many.

"My hope is that this will become not only our sanctuary, but the model for other sanctuaries throughout the country," he said.

The property sale should be finalized in September. Construction on the refuge facilities should come another 12 to 18 months after that.