A San Francisco animal shelter is limiting the number of dogs it takes in due to recent electrical problems.
Muttville Senior Dog Rescue is currently moving into a newly renovated building, but the new location has overloaded PG&E’s electrical system.
Muttville founder and CEO Sherri Franklin says they moved in at the end of July. On August 1, the shelter suddenly lost power. Since then, they have been working with PG&E to get everything back up and running.
“We appreciate and understand Muttville’s valuable contribution to the community and its commitment to vulnerable dogs,” said Tamar Sarkissian, PG&E spokesperson.
“PG&E restored power to Muttville on Tuesday, August 20, after Muttville signed the load limitation agreement on Friday, August 16. PG&E worked extensively with Muttville to provide guidance on the steps needed to ensure safe, reliable, and timely electricity service. However, Muttville’s demand for electricity exceeded the load limit and PG&E was not notified of the change. The higher than expected demand overloaded PG&E’s circuit twice, damaging PG&E equipment and creating potential safety and reliability issues for surrounding customers. After Muttville signed the load limitation agreement last week, PG&E was able to schedule crews to restore service that had been deactivated due to these overload emergencies. PG&E continues to work with Muttville and their contractor on a long-term plan to safely provide electricity in the future.”
Franklin said they currently have enough power to run the lights and internet, but their veterinary clinic is still in the dark.
“This is our veterinary clinic here, it’s got everything we need right there,” she explained. “Except for our dogs and our vet.”
Muttville rents a clinic by the day, it takes about an hour to get a dog to that location. Due to limited electricity and access to care, they are limited in the number of dogs they can help.
“The PG&E issue has reduced our intake by about 75 percent,” Franklin said. “It’s affected a lot of dogs that would have come to Muttville, but didn’t come to Muttville. It’s frustrating, that’s what it is.”
Franklin is concerned that some of the dogs were euthanized at another shelter because they couldn’t be taken in. Some of the dogs are still at their old shelter at 255 Alabama Street, but they’re closing that next week and moving all of their animals to 750 Florida Street.
“We wanted to make this space appealing to seniors, families and children so that when they walk in, they immediately fall in love,” Franklin said.
Saturday will be the last adoption activity at their old shelter, after which they will move completely to the new shelter, hopefully it will be fully operational soon.
