None but street cats and stray
dogs, homeless waifs, ill-treated and half starved, are received at this
home. Occasionally, some family desiring to get rid of the animal they
have petted for months, perhaps years, will send it over to the
Sheltering Home. But if Mr. Perkins can find where it came from he
promptly returns it, for even this place, capable of comfortably housing
a hundred cats and as many dogs, cannot accommodate all the unfortunates
that are picked up in the streets of Boston. The accommodations, too,
while they are comfortable and even luxurious for the poor creatures
that have hitherto slept on ash-barrels and stone flaggings, are unfit
for household pets that have slept on cushions, soft rugs, and milady's
bed.
There is a dog-house and a cat-house, sufficiently far apart that the
occupants of one need not be disturbed by those of the other. In the
dog-house there are rows of pens on each side of the middle aisle, in
which from one to four or five dogs, according to size, are kept when
indoors. These are of all sorts, colors, dispositions, and sizes,
ranging from pugs to St. Bernards, terriers to mastiffs. There are few
purely bred dogs, although there are many intelligent and really
handsome ones. The dogs are allowed to run in the big yard that opens
out from their house at certain hours of the day; but the cats' yards
are open to them all day and night. All yards and runs are enclosed with
wire netting, and the cat-house has partitions of the same.
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