Touring the parish’s new $1.9 million animal shelter on Monday, animal control director Melisa-Sullivan Piwetz pointed to the new office’s decorations — a few jazz paintings and a cat mural — stacked in the corner against a wall.

“I told everybody I didn’t want holes in the new walls,” she said, smiling. “I guess they took it pretty serious.”

It seems they do. The new 9,584-square-foot shelter on Louisiana Highway 36 just west of the old shelter near Abita Springs at the Greater St. Tammany airport is three times as large and has been in the works since 2002.

Melisa Sullivan-Piwetz next to a cat mural, hung by stick adhesive tape to prevent nail holes in the new facility, hopes the new digs will increase adoptions. (Staff Photo by Matthew Penix)

For years parish officials scraped and saved money for its construction, and philanthropists such as Mary Emily Sebastian, who donated $40,000 in her will, allowed the project to plow forward.

Now it’s triangle shape awning, vibrant outside colors, open windows and conference and pet interview rooms give stark contrast to the cramped single story, aging shelter of old.

“The old facility overall was dark and aging,” Sullivan-Piwetz said. “This is brighter, much more uplifting when you walk inside.”

“It just lets the animals shine more,” she said.

The new facility, on 80 acres, is capable of housing 70 dogs compared to 32 at the old shelter and boasts a glass-enclosed lobby with more about a dozen waiting chairs. The old facility’s cramped lobby held about four chairs. In one corner of the lobby construction crews built a glass enclosed animal play area for public view.

The new shelter also boasts a dispatch room and three offices for animal control officers, much more plush than in years past. She hopes the new digs, complete with tiles embedded with paw prints, boosts the staff’s mission to increase adoptions.

“It’s a big moral boost for the staff,” she said.

Last year, the shelter accepted 6,299 animals, more than 3,000 of which were euthanized because they were too sick or bad tempered to be adopted.

“We euthanize for space,” Sullivan-Piwetz said at the time. “When you have 6,000 animals coming in a year, we have no choice. It’s the hardest part of the job.”

On Monday she said the shelter was still euthanizing roughly five out of 10 animals, the same as earlier this year, but much lower than the 70 to 80 percent rate in years past.

Behind the main building are kennels that allow animals to dart inside, where air condition ducts cool the area, and outside in open-air pens.

Further back is a yet-to-be completed animal hospital, where the parish will treat sick animals and spay and neuter all those adopted. That facility is expected to be finished in the first quarter of 2009, and until then veterinarians will perform the surgeries at the former shelter, she said.

For more information about the new facility at 31078 Louisiana Highway 36 call 882-4454.