Humane Society Launches Oceanside Facility

San Diego Humane Society nursery caregiver Jackie Noble picked up a small orange-and-white-patched kitten and placed it in a clear bowl atop a scale. Noble wore big-framed glasses, plastic gloves and a semi-transparent yellow smock over her blue hospital scrubs. The scrubs contrasted with her bright scarlet hair.

Several other kittens and cats frolicked and pounced—some slept—as Noble took readings in the quarantine area.

“We just got these cats in, so you can’t pet them because we don’t know if they have any diseases,” she said.

The San Diego Humane Society and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals opened their new Oceanside facilities to the public on Saturday.

The Humane Society recently purchased two large buildings at 571 Airport Rd. which will operate as the organization's central location in North County for animal services.

Shannon Gusy pointed a video camera at the orange kitten as it sat on the scale. As the Humane Society's marketing and communications coordinator, she was taking footage for a behind-the-scenes video for the organization’s donors.

“Kittens need 24-hour care, so we care for them around the clock,”  Gusy said. “We are also excited to expand our community programs and education in the North County.”

Before Gusy started working for the San Diego Humane Society, she thought that all the organization did was adopt out animals.

“And that is an important part of what we do, but we also offer so much more to the community,” she said. “So today we’re trying to show all the programs we offer. That includes education for both adults and children. The San Diego Humane Society has been around for 130 years and we're happy to have recently expanded into Oceanside.”

The Humane Society acquired a smaller facility at after a merger with the North County Humane Society in January 2010. That facility will become a nonpublic rehabilitation clinic used for healing traumatized dogs, said Michael Baehr, director of marketing and communications for the Humane Society.

Part of the move into Oceanside was to be able to form a partnership with Camp Pendleton and its personnel, Baehr said. The Humane Society will make a formal announcement about its plans to partner with the base in about three weeks, said Baehr.

“The whole point of this is that we’re just getting started and we’re trying to build partnerships with the military community, with all the communities in Oceanside, to provide educational opportunities, animal services, programs training—all the stuff that hasn’t been easily accessible for programs from the San Diego Humane Society until now because we’re here now,” Baehr said. “This is going to be the beginning of a lot more to come.” 

Overall, the Humane Society has spent upwards of $1.5 million in association with acquiring the new facilities and setup costs, Baehr said.

“Over the next three-plus years, we’re going to master-plan this site so that eventually all the dogs at San Luis Rey will come here and we’ll have dogs on one side and cats on the other,” Baehr said. “But it requires a big investment because we have to build drainage and dog runs and kennels and things that cats don’t really require right now.” 

Marine Corps wife Christina Pizzuti sat in front of a desk filling out pre-adoption paperwork.

“I’m thinking of adopting a cat,” Pizzuti said.

Several “visiting rooms” were set up in one of the buildings. Erin Bossemeyer, Craig Brunache and their son, 4-year-old Justin, sat in one of the small rooms waiting for their playdate. Humane Society adoption counselor Kim Taylor brought in a few small kittens.

“We’re looking to adopt two kittens,” Bossemeyer said. “We had a cat that passed away a couple months ago, so now we’re looking for a new one. We live in the area and we just happened to notice that this place was open, so we came by. It’s a really nice facility and we’re happy to have it around.”

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