The Wags and Whiskers Animal Shelter in Innsbrook received a generous donation from Barb and Gary Powell. The Powells, who are longtime supporters of the shelter, will match any donations up to a total of $10,000. 

Wags and Whiskers President Tracy Sator said the Powells reached out after they heard the Sky Wars Fireworks show was cancelled this year due to inclement weather. 

The shelter is a charity partner with the fireworks show and receives some funding from the proceeds. Those donations make up a significant portion of their budget. 

“When they learned that Sky Wars had to be cancelled this year, and the deficit that put into our budget, they came forward and wanted to know how they could help us kind of make that up,” said Sator. 

She said they started the donation matching campaign in January and have already raised $2,000 of the $20,000 goal that will be reached with the help of the Powells. 

“We want to keep it going throughout the year to try to make up that deficit and get us that much closer to opening as we move forward with our build,” said Sator. 

The Powells have been supporters of the shelter, and its predecessor, Concerned Citizens for Animal Control, since 2000 and thought now was the time to make something happen. 

Barb said she was disappointed that there had been so many issues getting the shelter off the ground, and wanted to do whatever she could to expedite that process. 

“It breaks my heart that we don’t have a shelter,” said Barb. 

The shelter faced some setbacks in 2024, as a conditional use permit for a septic lagoon that would have been used at the shelter was denied by the Innsbrook Board of Trustees, and they were forced to return to the drawing board. 

“Currently our engineer has designed the in ground septic system,” said Sator. “It is making its way through the approval process at DNR.”

She said the donations from the campaign would be used to cover costs associated with the installation of the new septic system and the remediation of the lagoon. 

She did not expect these to be issues and said they had already been in conversations with the village board about the next steps and would be renewing their building permit shortly. 

“We don’t see any issues with it, so once the engineered system is approved, we go back to extend our building permit and then we move forward with putting that system in,” said Sator. 

There is plenty of other work that also needs to be done on the building, and Sator said they are currently working on painting the interior of the building and installing other fixtures like doors and toilets. 

They will also need to install a well to provide water to the shelter, and that process is underway as well. 

There had been concerns with the viability of an in-ground septic system with the potential for dog hair to clog the system. Sator said they plan to open slowly to test the capacity of the system before they put any real stress on it. 

“We probably will start with two dogs,” said Sator. “Just to test the protocols of that system to make sure we’re not taxing it right off the bat, and see how much hair actually flows through the filtering system.”

Barb was glad that she was able to help make the shelter a possibility, and Sator felt that with the help from their donation campaign, they could be open as soon as fall of this year. 

“The shelter has gone on for so long and I finally made the decision, I have to help,” said Barb.