East County dogs enjoy Architecture for Animals

Milligan hesitates before walking through the doorway toward an aspect of the shelter that he hasn’t sniffed out before.

Tongue out and panting, the 10-month-old black Labrador retriever mix is usually energetic and fast-paced. But he looks to longtime Nate’s Honor Animal Rescue volunteer Brigitte Baumgartner for assurance before slowly climbing the steps of the first leg of the East County shelter’s new obstacle course.

He had never climbed stairs before.

“It’s OK,” Baumgartner says, bending down to drop a treat finto Milligan’s mouth. “This is fun. You’ll be OK.”

Treats motivate him to move through the lineup of stairs, hills, swaying bridges and hoopes to jump through. Milligan moves faster through the rest of the course, forcing Baumgartner to jog after him. He could be faster, but he likes to inspect the course with his oversized tongue.

Petey, a 3-year-old hound mix, never hesitates to start the course. Once he moves through the doorway into the brightly painted Key West and Carribean-themed attraction, he races through the course with only occasional stops for treat breaks and licks.

Mulligan and Petey are among the first of Honor’s dogs to use the course, Architecture for Animals, which opened June 13. The course is designed to boost the dogs’ confidence and trust in humans and to help the dogs learn basic skills essential for life outside the shelter, once they are adopted.

“What we see with dogs here, is that they’re fearful in many cases,” says Karen Slomba, associate director of Nate’s. “They lack self-confidence, and they have trouble doing simple tasks, such as walking through doorways or climbing stairs. We want to teach them how to adapt to those situations, to show them what it’s like to be in a home with a family.”

Slomba and other volunteers have helped carry dogs weighing more than 60 pounds up and down staircases at the shelter.

“That’s not an easy task,” Slomba said. “It would be nice to give all our dogs that basic understanding.”

The course sits on 2.5 acres of the backside of Nate’s vast property. Slomba expects the course will be used daily by volunteers who have dog training experience. But dog walkers and other volunteers will also participate later.

Honor Director of Development Rob Oglesby hopes to expand on the project, he says.

As part of the overall plan for the course, Honor’s feline friends will have a new play area, too. No timeline has been set for that aspect of the project, yet.

Honor officials might build a fence around the course, so dogs can move around freely, rather than on a leash with a volunteer.

“We’ll make tweaks as we go,” Oglesby says. “This is a great first step.”

Honor didn’t solicit for the project, Slomba says. Building and architecture groups reached out to the East County shelter with the idea a few months ago.

Gulf Coast Chapter of American Institute of Architecture, Gulf Coast Builders Exchange and Construction Specialists Institute built the course for Nate’s free of charge. Oglesby said the project is worth more than $15,000 in materials alone and is the product of 1,000 volunteer hours over the few weeks it took to construct the course.

“I think the companies just fell in love with Nate’s and wanted to help,” Slomba says. “We have a unique shelter environment here, and I think people are drawn to that. This course just fell into our laps, and we’re so thankful for that.”

Contact Amanda Sebastiano at [email protected].