My Nonprofit Reviews

My husband and I adopted our first dog together from ACT. We could hardly wait to get home from our honeymoon to visit this place we had already grown to love just from viewing the website. Upon finally getting to visit ACT, we fell in love. We expected to love the dogs, but we did not expect to be so moved by the experience. The facility is completely run by volunteers and there is no denying each person found there is there because they love animals. The property is beautiful and the dogs are so well cared for despite the challenge of being completely supported by donations. It is a sad reality that there are places that "save" animals only to give up on them shortly after, but ACT is different. Each animal is able to call ACT home for as long as they need to and no animal is turned away. This sanctuary serves as a home for each of its residents and is full of smiles and new beginnings.

The little dogs act as the welcoming committee as you enter the gates. Sweet Earl greets you once you enter the building with a full-body wiggle inspired by a pure love of all guests. Angel runs the front desk under the supervision of Fowler's Babe and makes sure to help Earl let the humans know visitors have come. Once you get into the hallway, Romeo, the gentle giant, escorts you to your next destination. The entire facility is colored with murals of happy animals and success stories. You can look into the rooms and see perfectly content animals everywhere. One of my favorite rooms is the senior citizen lounge. There you can find some of the older tenants enjoying their age while watching the same video cassette tape all day and finding comfort on an old couch. If you ask the volunteers why they leave a television on for them they will probably tell you, "They seem to like it that way. It makes them happy."

Once we got outside to see the bigger dogs, we realized that we were in trouble because we were falling in love with each of them as we toured their spaces. I am someone who has to engage with all of them so our visit was lengthy, but no one there ever rushed us. We were able to bond with the potential new family members in a beautiful play yard and the volunteers helped us along the whole process. They were supportive and well-informed because they knew each individual detail of each dog, and they cared. Even the response of the dogs made it evident that the love shared at ACT is mutual.

Baron was added to our family in June and has been such a blessing to our lives. We had such a wonderful experience the first time, we ended up adopting our second ACT family member, Boomey, in August. We have been given the gift of coming home to our sweet boys every day, but there has yet to be a day that I don't think about the welcoming committee and Earl, Angel and Babe, Romeo and the senior citizens...

I can personally guarantee that your life will be so positively changed if you even just visit this place, getting to take one (or two) of its residents home with you will only serve as a constant reminder that you are forever a member of the ACT family, and you, just like Brenda and Brian and Katie and all of the other wonderful blessings do every day, have had two hands in saving an animal that deserves a forever home.