Revelation Gardens
dog and cat sanctuary
About Us
Revelation Gardens is nestled in a small community in west Tennessee. We are surrounded by rolling green hills, dense forests, a large pond, and an array of wildlife. Our Rescue-Pet residents enjoy a life of leisure surrounded by nature.
Why we do what we do
The following simple story speaks to why we do what we do.
A sparrow was seen on the ground with its legs in the air. When asked what he was doing he said, “I heard the sky is falling so I have come to help.” The visitor laughed saying, “You can’t stop the sky from falling with those scrawny legs!” The sparrow replied, “One does what one can.”
Our efforts to reduce the number of pets in the system is a small number compared to the vastness of the issue, but even in small measure a difference is being made.
Rescue-Pet Environment
Animals in sterile, contained environments don’t do as well as those living in a home-like environment. In sterile crated environments pets often display signs of stress, anxiety, depression, and aggression. Conversely when pets are exposed to armchairs, reading programs, and relaxing music, for example, they have better outcomes.
Animal rooms:
Kiki’s Krib has bright sunny windows with views of the majestic oak trees. This space is equipped with a small bed, steps to get on and off the bed, and a low cat tree making it an ideal space for our senior feline.
Kitten Kottage boasts views overlooking the pond and a Martin bird house. It is equipped with a futon for long cat naps, scratch poles, tunnels, and lots of toys for our young Rescue-Pet felines.
Catty Shack is a ground level space with large windows that overlook the patio and garden boxes. Birds searching for worms and scratching for seed is the main entertainment. The Catty Shack is equipped with a small bed, window seat, and lots of open space to play. Several cats enjoy this area as their living quarters. This space also has a sink and storage for cat supplies.
The Atrium has vaulted ceilings and wrap-around windows with views of the pond, gardens, and grassy hills. Equipped with tall and short cat trees, a couch with blankets for kitty naps, and a television to play soothing instrumental music, this area is a favorite of the Rescue-Pets residents.
Canine Cabin opens to the patio and back property. It is equipped with an old sectional couch, pet-tunes, basket of dog toys, place for charging Invisible Fence collars, plenty of storage for supplies, and a sink. Our canine Rescue-Pets enjoy spending time here.
We created a home environment so the Rescue-Pets experience a safe, stress-free environment. The sanctuary provides soothing sounds, comfortable couches, futons, and beds with blankets. There are bright sunny spots for napping, views overlooking a pond, oak trees, grassy hills, and bird houses. Cats have cat trees to climb and lounge on, tunnels to explore, and plenty of toys to bat around. Dogs experience soothing sounds too, comfortable couches, dog cots, and plenty of enrichment toys. Dogs also spend a great portion of their time running around the grounds. Each animal has their own space with several choosing to co-habitat together.
In cases like Blue, who was diagnosed with Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV), a low stress environment is paramount and contributes to lengthening their already shortened life.
Rescue-Pet Grief
When a companion animal experiences loss it takes time to grieve and heal. When the animal is placed into a shelter environment which is often characterized by high levels of stress, the pet can experience compounded grief leading to health and behavioral problems. Similarly, when a pet is placed in a rescue after experiencing loss and then is uprooted again sometimes multiple times, they experience compounded grief leading to physiological and behavioral problems. By providing these companion animals with a sanctuary environment as opposed to a high turn-over rescue environment, we enable them to heal, rebuild trust, and experience a safe home-like environment for the duration of their lives.
Our primary purpose is to help animals in our care, learn to trust and live happy, healthy lives for the rest of their lives.
Reducing the need for rescues
As a society we can continue to care for homeless, abused, and surrendered pets, but if we do not look at the underlying causes, the animal population will continue to grow. For this reason our secondary purpose is to provide educational resources to the community. To do this we identify underlying causes of pet abandonment and offer educational support and resources for the problem areas identified.
Additionally, pet owners can find themselves overwhelmed with life responsibilities and become stressed and anxious which can be taken out on the pet through impatience, resentment, abuse, and surrender. Our virtual retreat center offers a mechanism for rejuvenation without having to go to a retreat center. The virtual retreat center provides a toolkit for reducing stress and anxiety and is available to the community-at-large with a donation.
Because the issue is complex and a single approach, although helpful, would not address the complex underlying issues in their entirety, our approach involves three perspectives:
- By offering sanctuary to surrendered pets we will reduce the number entering the overburdened pet shelter system and provide owners who are nearing death or entering long-term care assurance their pet will be cared for and not enter the shelter system.
- Through community education and a community based participatory approach we will learn pet care beliefs and traditions that lead to not spaying and neutering, neglect, and abuse. By approaching education through a community based participatory approach, we hope to reach pet owners on a peer-to-peer level rather than in a hierarchical manner. This has been shown to produce better educational outcomes.
- Through providing a mechanism for reducing stress and increasing the ability of pet owners to handle life we hope to reduce (and eliminate) pet abuse, neglect, and abandonment.
- Photo by Amal Santhosh on Pexels.com