The Wylie Animal Rescue Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to saving the lives of animals from kill shelters all over the region, continues to grow. It started as a foster-based rescue in 1998.

"We were foster-based until 2018, when we were fortunate to get a donation that allowed us to buy land," said Samantha Wood Loudon, founder of Wylie Animal Rescue Foundation.

The nonprofit bought 20 acres in Stagecoach and built a sanctuary for cats and dogs to live out their lives in peace - or live in peace until they find forever homes.

"A lot of the animals that we pull, particularly dogs, come from kill lists," she said. "We don't know what we're getting a lot of the time and putting them straight into foster homes was starting to feel a little sketchy. So we have a place they can come and be housed and evaluated and if they're suitable for adoption, we place them. If not, they have forever homes here."

At the sanctuary, being in the doghouse isn't a bad thing - volunteers are building more than a dozen custom cabins for canines here.

"The cabins are built like tiny homes, they are heated and cooled and they have their own yards, so the dogs are not warehoused or kenneled of anything like that," Loudon said. "We hope to have 13 functional cabins for the dogs which will be the long term, and inside our building we have 8 more traditional kennel-type runs."

The cabins, for some, will be forever homes. For others, the hope is the sanctuary is just a temporary stop.

"We have a lot of seniors, we have one-eyed dogs, we have behavior issues, so we don't take the cream of the crop," Louden said. "They take longer to adopt out but we feel like it's a pretty worthy effort."

Right now they're looking for homes for two senior dogs who are cancer survivors. There's Mercury, who's been at the sanctuary for the last two years.

"Mercury had some fear and aggression in the beginning, but it takes about five minutes for him to warm up and then he's a big couch potato," Louden said. "He's kind of intimidating-looking ,he's a big stocky pit bull, but he's been through several cancer surgeries and he's now cancer free and we'd like to find him a couch to live out the rest of his life on."

And then there's Rosie, who had to be surrendered later in life.

"She's kind of a super senior; she also came from a high-kill shelter," Louden said. "She's maybe a Pit-Aussie mix. We don't know how much time she has left. She's another cancer survivor, we had surgery on her so she's now cancer-free, but she is another one that just needs a soft landing spot for the time she has left."

There's also a space for adoptable kitties, and a permanent place for dozens of feral cats.

"We have 25-30 cats living there in the feral cattery," said volunteer Donna Coombs. "They were street cats, trailer park cats before this, and they will live here safely for the rest of their lives."

It's an all-volunteer effort here, and these dedicated volunteers work to improve a space that will continue to save lives.

"People come out here and labor with love; it's pretty amazing out here," Coombs said. "I've grown to love it, and we have made so much progress over the last three years. We have a ways to go, but we will get there."

There's a volunteer day every month where everyone is welcome to help improve the sanctuary grounds.

More information: https://tahoewarf.org/