Grand County Animal Shelter walk symbolizes fresh new beginning

Community members celebrated the long-anticipated opening of the new Grand County Animal Shelter on Sept. 26, 2026.

Organizers were smart to start the celebration at the old Grand County Animal Shelter, where community members and their dogs began a walk together to the new animal shelter just a mile or so down the road.

The walk was symbolic to mark the end of the old shelter and the start of the new one, but it also served a practical purpose of dogs getting their excited energies out on a walk before "good behavior" at the ceremony.

It also symbolized the connection of a walk between dog and human, and the collective human devotion to our beloved pets.

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Before opening up the building to the community for tours, an official Leash Cutting ceremoniously marked the beginning of a new chapter for the Grand County Animal Shelter, one that is in partnership with the Grand County Pet Pals organization that successfully raised the money to buy the land and build the building, ensuring this service forever (hopefully) remains in Grand County.

It was a rather impressive feat and testament to the community's dedication to its animals that Pet Pals raised $4 million to purchase the land and build this state-of-art new building.

They enlisted MA Studios to design the building and Chillcoots Construction to build it.

Now in-crisis animals who end up at the shelter will have indoor and outdoor access via doggie doors of each shelter holding. The cats also will have outside time with plenty of cat towers and trees to climb, both inside and outside. A neat feature is a window to watch the kitty-cat shenanigans from the human waiting and front desk area. Tinted window glass on the exterior wall will keep the cat play area nice and cool during Colorado's intense sunshine.

And acoustical panels on the ceiling of the main doggie area will help temper those moments of loud barking.

We love the fact that there is a large obstacle course for dogs adjacent to the new building. What a treat for stressed dogs to focus their minds on exercise and completing the course.

The sum of many of these features and more is far better than the old animal shelter of Grand County.

Principal Architect and owner of MA Studios J. Scott Munn, whose father was a veterinarian with a practice in Littleton, Colo., was very honored to have taken part in this project.

He was honored not only because this is a place of great value to this community, but also as a pet owner himself, it was a project that deeply reflected his own love of animals engendered in him through his upbringing.