Sherri Franklin has created a world inside of Muttville where even the saddest, down on their luck senior pups have a second chance at life. I sat down with Sherri to learn more about Muttville, senior pet wellness, and her mission to save as many senior \u201cmutts\u201d as possible.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Muttville is a very special place. It has set a new standard for animal wellness, both physical and emotional. How did the concept of Muttville come to be?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Muttville<\/a> started at my house, and I was here with a lot of volunteers for about five years. In that time, in that first year I saved 27 dogs and placed all these senior dogs that were on euthanasia lists. I thought that was a win because I wasn\u2019t sure if we were going to be able to celebrate a bunch of successes or if I was just going to become a hoarder of senior dogs, which was not my plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I really started working right away with foster homes, and this was pre-Facebook, pre-internet and social media, so everything we were doing was with posters with tears-offs. We put them in veterinary offices, supermarket cork boards and we taped them to things. That\u2019s how we got the word out back in the \u201cold days\u201d. I pretty much opened up my house to all these new people that I was just meeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n People ask, \u201cHow did you do it?\u201d and I don\u2019t really remember because I was just going, going, going. I didn\u2019t have time to really think about it. And there was such a need, you know? The first year, we only rescued so many dogs, but we moved quickly up to saving over 100 dogs a year. Now we are saving over 1,000 a year. Learning how to maneuver and learning how to do all this, all with volunteers. I didn\u2019t get paid. they didn\u2019t get paid. We were just doing this for the love of the dogs. Which we still do, but now, thank God, we actually get paid to do this because it\u2019s a full-time job. It\u2019s seven days a week for me. It\u2019s a labor of passion for all our staff and all our volunteers. It is all about the dogs. In fact, our chant is \u201cDogs! Dogs! Dogs!\u201d That is what it\u2019s about. It\u2019s setting up these dogs for success. Some of them were neglected their whole lives and, you know, to get them to smile and know what love is\u2026 it creates a real community around that because so many people are also \u201crescued\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I want to say we are all rescued because of dogs too, right? I think back in 2007 there was no such thing as a senior dog rescue. There were a couple of sanctuaries in the nation, but there was not an organization really marketing the viability of adopting out senior dogs and how great they are in a home. Those kinds of things that weren\u2019t really talked about. They were throw-aways, more-or-less. I like to think of us as a community, rather than one place. I named it \u201cMuttville\u201d because I wanted it to be a land you could go to. It was not just a shelter, it was really a special place you could go to and find happiness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your facility is extremely welcoming and comforting. It almost feels like walking into someone\u2019s living room. You truly broke the mold by becoming the first cage-free facility in the nation. How do you think this affects the well-being of the \u201cMutts\u201d in your care? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, number one, it keeps them more adoptable. If you have a dog living in a kennel for weeks on end, they start to go a little crazy, they lose their sociability\u2026 even if they get out on a walk, it’s not enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When we found our space, when the San Francisco SPCA offered up their old offices, we had space to grow out of my house, and I wanted to create a shelter that felt like my home, with cozy beds and sofas. A comfy place for humans and dogs! Knowing that a dog is not sleeping in a cage at night or in a kennel, I think it not only helps with keeping them socialized, but I also think it’s healthier. I think dogs get sicker in kennels. That\u2019s why it\u2019s called \u201ckennel cough\u201d. It\u2019s the stress of being in a kennel that creates more illness. You\u2019re keeping a dog healthier by virtue of just having them be social and happy, just like humans. When you get unhappy, you get sick. It goes hand-in-hand. So, it keeps them adoptable, it keeps them healthier, and on top of all of that, we are able to tell an adopter a lot more about the dog\u2019s personality when you see them in a foster home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We are basically foster-based. We have 70 dogs in foster homes and maybe 20 at our shelter at any given time so we are really moving them into foster homes very quickly. But as far as people adopting a dog with more information, I mean why wouldn\u2019t you want to know more about your dog? How is it in the house? Is it a counter surfer? Well, at least you know it\u2019s a counter surfer in advance rather than finding that out later. I have a counter surfer here, but I can tell somebody \u201cJust make sure you push everything back on the counter before you bring your dog in\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Being cage-free and being foster-based<\/a> was always part of the plan and we have worked out a lot of kinks over the years. I mean, we are going on 17 years, so I like to think we really started a movement. I think people are seeing that it can be really successful. And yes, not all dogs can fit into a cage-free environment. We do have separate rooms and different offices where single dogs can be if we find that they just don\u2019t thrive with other dogs. We try to move them into foster homes more quickly if they are bigger or if they maybe aren\u2019t great in a group of animals. Certainly, it\u2019s not for every situation, and we do have kennels for our ISO dogs because it\u2019s important to have that area where you can separate a dog that comes in sick or gets sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We also have a foster program, \u201cMutts on the Mend\u201d, where we send out dogs to homes that don\u2019t have other dogs, so we can get some of these dogs who are sick into homes. I think we created something new, and I think people are seeing that it can work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is very apparent when you walk into Muttville that every single person in that building is so happy to be there, both staff and volunteers alike. Everyone is very warm and joyful, and their level of commitment to the Mutts is obvious. At a time when there is such a drought of dedicated fosters and volunteers, how do you think you have been able to form such a tight-knit Muttville family? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That is such a great question. We actually just spoke at the Best Friends conference in Texas this past week about how we keep our volunteers and our fosters. I think it boils down to creating community and letting people become a part of the process. When you have a foster who is really committed to their foster dog, they should be a part of the process of the adoption. They should meet with the adopter. They should feel the reward of saving that dog as much as Muttville does because we can\u2019t do it without fosters. It\u2019s about bringing people in and creating a community where it\u2019s not us and them, or the staff versus the fosters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s really about the fosters getting the win, too. I learned this early on because I was a volunteer and a foster family for other organizations for years before I started Muttville, and it never felt like I had any control over where the dogs went. They went back to the shelter for adoption days, and I wouldn\u2019t see that dog again. When I was a volunteer, I had so many rules and so much rigidity in the way I could be at the organization. It wasn\u2019t like I was part of the team. It was more like I was doing their bidding. At Muttville, you are a part of the team. The minute you come in you are going to be doing things. You are not only going to be walking dogs, but you are going to be cleaning up poop like the rest of us. You are going to help feed. You are going to help medicate. We are allowing our volunteers to really feel like they are making a difference. And they are. They are making a difference. We couldn\u2019t do it without our volunteers and our fosters. We couldn\u2019t save lives. I think people keep coming back because they feel well cared for, and they get to feel the reward of their dogs getting adopted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Muttville is very well known for its Seniors for Seniors program. Why do you feel a program like this is so beneficial? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are a million reasons. About 30% of our adopters this year are seniors. I think we have created the buzz around that. I think that seniors need that unconditional love, that reason to get up in the morning, and that community more than anybody. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, bringing a puppy into a senior home probably is not the best idea at all, not for the dog and not for the senior. It depends on the senior, or whatever you consider senior\u2026 our senior<\/em>, seniors. I don\u2019t feel like we should have boundaries around that. I mean, there are seniors that absolutely cannot support a dog in the way that it needs to be. Like, they can\u2019t walk it. But it works if you have a support system. I had a 100-year-old woman adopt a dog and she has a support system that takes the dog out for a walk, but she also goes out in her walker still with her dog, and it\u2019s keeping her alive. It keeps her from not wanting to get up in the morning. She wants<\/em> to get up in the morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We have created a community of seniors that we call \u201cCuddle Club\u201d, made up of seniors that can\u2019t have dogs or unfortunately feel like they can\u2019t have a dog in their life. They come to Muttville once a week and they walk the dogs together, they cuddle all the dogs that are at the shelter at the time, and it\u2019s sort of like they are volunteering, but they are also getting their dog fix in. You get to see this love that happens. We have had grumpy old men and women come in wheelchairs and they don\u2019t even smile when you say hi. But the minute you put a dog in their lap they are laughing and having conversations. Dogs and seniors are so perfect together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As far as Muttville and senior dogs<\/a> go, we get a lot of dogs from senior citizens. Unfortunately, sometimes a senior goes into a nursing facility and can\u2019t have a dog anymore or passes away and can\u2019t have their dog anymore\u2026 we get their dogs. We get a lot of dogs that have come from a home with a senior, so it\u2019s a really good match to place one of these dogs in a home with another senior. Families bring in their mothers, their grandmothers, or their great aunts, so it becomes a family affair to pick out the dog. It\u2019s really sweet. The stories we get are amazing. The people that write back and tell us the journey of the dog and the father who was a curmudgeon and never liked anybody, and now he knows all the neighbors\u2026 things like that start to happen when you have a dog. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You also have a very successful hospice program. One would think it would be difficult to find people who would be willing to take on dogs who have terminal illnesses. What do you think draws people to this program?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I am drawn to that program, so I can speak to that. I bring home hospice dogs often. We adopt out these dogs as hospice dogs. We support their palliative care, which is pain relief, if a dog has an ear infection, things like that. Of course, that is a \u201cquality of life\u201d thing that we can fix. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What draws people to it, and I am one of those, is knowing that we get to give this great gift of love and fun to these dogs that still have a positive quality of life. They don\u2019t know they are sick, you know? We get to give them that until their quality of life is diminished and they are suffering, and then we get to give them the gift of euthanasia, which is a gift at that point, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of our hospice dogs get adopted more quickly than our regular dogs because people know, when one goes, we rescue another. It is a really rewarding experience for the right home. We have families that have decided, with their kids, to take home a dog in hospice as well, so it\u2019s not just for the older person. It can be a beautiful thing. We get some responses like \u201cI don\u2019t want to put my child through losing an animal\u201d and then we get the other people that say, \u201cI really want my daughter, son, or family to experience this in a positive way\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Going in, knowing their time is short, let\u2019s make it fun, let\u2019s make it joyful, let\u2019s live in the moment. It teaches you a lot. I want to be one of my dogs when I get old. I don\u2019t want to suffer either. I want pain meds and then I want somebody to say it\u2019s my time because I\u2019m suffering. I kind of feel that humans don\u2019t always fare that well at the end of their lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By specializing in senior Mutts, there is a high probability that medical care outside of the routine will be needed. How does Muttville handle the medical necessities for all the Mutts? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, we do have a full-time vet staff. We have volunteer veterinarians that come in weekly, and we have a full-time vet that we employ. We have three vet techs, we have a dental specialist\u2026 we have a full clinic. Having all that has helped us save money, believe it or not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"muttville](\"https:\/\/osfbl01.justfoodfordogs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/MVBlogPhoto_6.jpg\")
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