Pets Alive of Middletown, NY

The goal of the Challenge: Raise $100,000 for our state of the art Dog Kennel.

It was not too long ago that Pets Alive determined it needed to replace our existing 50-year-old, deteriorating dog kennel building. A leaking roof, inadequate space, crumbling mason work in the dog kennel enclosures, broken fencing, and other issues were just a few reasons we decided we needed a new space.

We know that you, like us, know that each and every pet who walks through our doors deserves the absolute best. That’s why this year, we’re using our 30 days during the Saving Pets Challenge to raise money for our new building.

The new building will be 12,000 square feet of space. It will include features such as heated floors (donors like you helped us fund this through the Saving Pets Challenge last year!), a community room, an expanded adoption area, more intake, quarantine, and medical evaluation space, 51 dog kennel enclosures, and large garage doors in the kennel area to provide sunlight and fresh air for the animals. And we finally have a blueprint from our architect klmARCHITECT to share with you!

Who are we?

Pets Alive is a no-kill animal rescue organization situated on over 80 acres of property, located at 363 Derby Road, Middletown, NY.  In 2022, Pets Alive celebrates 34 years of saving lives thanks to our supporters.

The organization’s mission is to build a humane community supporting the human-animal bond by being a resource through rescue, adoption, intervention, education, and outreach. 

Pets Alive takes in local stray cats and dogs, as well as dogs from out-of-state shelters that face overcrowding, so they do not have to resort to euthanasia.  Additionally, we work with local law enforcement on rescuing animals involved in cruelty or abuse cases.  Animals that come within our care continue their lives at our facility until they are adopted, no matter how long that takes. In 2021, we cared for over 800 cats, dogs, and farm animals and adopted out 571 animals. We offer many programs to our community, including TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) of community cats, low-cost pet-wellness clinics, humane education, and more.

Why a new dog kennel building?

The current building, built in the early 1970s, has outlived its useful life, requiring extensive renovations needed to maintain the safety and health of both humans and animals to continue to carry on our mission. 

In late 2018, the Pets Alive board of directors hired Shelter Planners of America, a national organization that focuses on animal shelter design, to conduct a needs assessment to determine how we address the building condition, i.e., do we renovate or build a new building? In 2019, we decided to construct a new state-of-the-art dog kennel building. The final building design and site plan was approved by the town of Wallkill, NY Planning Board in March 2021. We are currently completing the final architectural drawings, foundation design, and design of the plumbing, electrical components, lighting, and alarm systems. Construction will begin in 2022. 

We've raised about $1.5M for building construction thanks to generous supporters, including a $500,000 New York State Companion Animal Fund Grant. The cost of the building is estimated to cost over $4.5M. This Saving Pets Challenge campaign is critical to help us with our continued capital fundraising. 

For a view of the architectural drawing of the building interior, the site plan, and other information about other features in the building, click on the "Features" tab at the top of this page.

Check out the Media Section below for photos of just a few dogs we have available for adoption. And its dogs like these that will benefit from the building!