Capital campaign launching at the Great Country Mutt Show in June

By Ruth Melville

For over 60 years, the Little Guild has been taking in homeless cats and dogs and helping
them find their “forever homes.” Located for 30 of those years in a 3,000-square-foot
building in West Cornwall, the shelter is now planning a major renovation of their
facility. The redesign will not greatly expand the current building but instead reconfigure
it to make better use of the available space.

Founded in 1960 by Muriel Alvord Ward and Eleanora Kleinschmidt, the Little Guild
provides a range of services and activities—including medical care, behavioral
assessment, training (all dogs are taught to wear a collar or harness and walk on a lead),
exercise and socialization—designed to ensure the animals are ready to be successfully
adopted. The facility can comfortably accommodate 16 dogs and 25 cats at any one time,
but over the years it has become harder to work within the building’s limitations.

“The current facility has been wonderful,” said Executive Director Jenny Langendoerfer,
“but it can’t keep up with the wear and tear.” And she cites two major limitations: that
there is no quarantine area for dogs, and that dogs and cats are right next to each other,
which is stressful for the cats.

The dogs are presently housed in one room that lacks soundproofing. The room is clean
and airy, but the sound of barking is loud and constant, which can be stressful for some
dogs (not to mention their human caregivers). The redesigned facility will have four
soundproofed pods. “It will be a quieter, gentler experience for the dogs,” Langendoerfer
said. There will also be a dog “living room” for those who would benefit from a more
homey atmosphere, and a cat patio for cats to play in—a definite improvement over
watching cat videos for stimulation, “although they do seem to love those,” she said with
a laugh.

The redesign will also be easier on the staff, with a more logical workflow and, ideally,
calmer and happier animals that will be ready for adoption sooner.

Many other core activities of the Little Guild will have more room to flourish in the new
facility. A multipurpose Community Room “will be fantastic for our training and
outreach programs,” Langendoerfer said. Until now, meet and greets for potential
adopters had to take place in the lobby, and dog training could only be done outside or in
the executive director’s office.

“We also offer a lot of programs to support pet owners in the community,”
Langendoerfer said.” Thanks to support from the Northwest Connecticut Community
Foundation and the Cornwall Community Foundation, the guild is able to provide low-
cost training for local dog owners. In addition, the guild has a free pet pantry at their
facility, and once a month volunteers bring pet food to the Friendly Hands Food Bank in
Torrington. The Little Guild partners with the Susan B. Anthony Project in Torrington
and Project SAGE, in Lakeville, both of which help victims of sexual assault and
domestic violence by taking in clients’ pets when they are temporarily unable to care for
them themselves.

Langendoerfer said that, with the full participation of the board of trustees, they have
been working on plans for the renovation for two years. Although a land-use committee
considered the possibility of moving and even looked at other properties, they decided, in
part because of the shelter’s close ties with the local community, that remaining in their
current location was the best option.

A subcommittee of the board visited shelters throughout New England “to see what
worked the best,” Langendoerfer added, and they consulted with an architectural firm that
specializes in animal shelters. “We really did our homework on this,” she said.

The Little Guild has already received some private donations and a $125,000 matching
grant for the renovation, and they are now ready to launch the public part of the capital
campaign. The campaign will kick off on June 11 at the guild’s annual Great Country
Mutt Show. All dogs are eligible to compete in a wide range of categories, such as Best
Kisser, Best Ears and Waggiest Tail. There is a fee to register for the competition, but
general admission is free. In addition to lots and lots of dogs, there will be a pet and
parent fashion show, live music, food, and a raffle. The event is from 11 a.m. to 2:30
p.m., at Lime Rock Park, in Lakeville. Full information on the event is available on the
Little Guild’s website.