MARANA, Ariz. (KGUN) — Calling all dog owners! Sol Dog Lodge and Training Center recently opened their new location in Marana after years of working to make it a reality.
The nonprofit purchased the property located at 11862 N. Tangerine Business Loop in 2018. After years of fundraising, they were able to start welcoming dogs and their owners into the multi-million dollar facility at the end of last month.
Their mission is to keep dogs and families together, which is something they aim to do through services like training, grooming and boarding.
Shelley Harris, the organization’s Director Of Marketing, Outreach and Education, says they provide services for an unintended gap. She says sometimes people adopt dogs and then return them in part because they don’t know the services and support available to them.
“That gap that’s existed for so many years is something we’re trying to minimize so that people don’t have to surrender their dog back to wherever they got it,” Harris said. “They can actually have a really deep wonderful relationship with their dog.”
Executive Director, Valerie Palora says they are able to provide services to dogs that otherwise maybe wouldn’t receive them.
“We just had a person that came in and their dog has been kicked out of all different grooming salons and has never been able to get groomed. They just came in, we worked with them with our Sensitive Dog Program and we were able to groom that dog after two years,” she said.
They previously operated out of two locations; one in Marana and one in Tucson. Palora says they just weren’t big enough.
“We couldn’t help as many people as we wanted to,” she said.
Palora says they previously had 10 to 12 kennels, but now have 55 in this new space.
“And we had a very small training and grooming space,” Palora said. “You can see from when you walk around this building, it’s much bigger. Gives us much more capacity to help people and help the dogs and the families.”
After touring several potential sites for the facility about seven years ago, Palora explained that they immediately knew the location near Tangerine and I-10 was where they wanted to be.
“When we stepped into this spot here, it was like…this is it, this is it,” she explained.
They have now closed the two other locations, and are looking forward to being able to serve more families and their pets.
“It’s exciting. It’s a really exciting time, it’s a challenging time, but it’s a lot of fun for all of us that had this dream a long time ago,” Harris said.
——
Madison Thomas joined KGUN 9 in July of 2023 as a multimedia journalist. She graduated from Arizona State University in May of 2023 with a degree in journalism and mass communication. She has lived in Arizona her entire life and grew up in Douglas. Madison is thrilled to share the stories from the community she grew up in. Share your story ideas and important issues with Madison by emailing madison.thomas@kgun9.com or by connecting on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.
