The Promise We Share at Your Cheyenne Animal Shelter

Written by: Britney Tennant, Cheyenne Animal Shelter CEO

When most people hear the word shelter, their minds go straight to the animals waiting inside — tails tucked, eyes wide, cold floors and uncertain futures. It’s a picture that has lingered across generations, built on stories from the past and reinforced by misunderstanding.

But the Oxford English Dictionary reminds us that shelter isn’t a word born of sorrow or abandonment. It is a promise.

“A structure affording protection from rain, wind, or sun; in a wider sense, anything serving as a screen or a place of refuge from the weather.”“Something which affords a refuge from danger, attack, pursuit… a place of safety.” “To succour with refuge, to harbour… to take under one’s protection. Of a place: to be a secure home or refuge for.”

A place of safety. A refuge. A secure home.

Your Cheyenne Animal Shelter isn’t about the building, or the kennels, or the walls painted in cheerful colors. It’s about the act of providing protection. It’s about welcoming hurting, frightened or forgotten animals, and saying, ‘You are safe here.’ It’s about care, healing and hope. In its truest definition, it is a promise of protection given form.

And if you ever needed proof that your shelter is exactly that, you need only learn of Mona.

Mona arrived as a scrap of a kitten, barely larger than a kiwi fruit. She had no mother trailing behind her, no littermates curling against her in search of warmth. She was alone, and her body showed it. An upper respiratory infection had already ravaged her small lungs. Her eyes were clouded with pain. A cat that tiny, that sick, would never have survived the elements on her own. But here she found something soft beneath her — hands lifting, voices comforting, medicine, warmth and the vital feeling of a full tummy.

That work didn’t stop at the shelter door. One of our staff veterinarians brought Mona into her home as a foster. There, Mona fought through wave after wave of illness. As if the first infection wasn’t enough, she was diagnosed with ringworm — highly contagious, difficult to treat, requiring medicated baths and careful daily handling. Many would shy away from that kind of care. But we leaned in. Her foster mom kept washing her tiny body, giving antifungal medicine, whispering encouragement.

Mona won that battle. And then another one came.

She contracted feline panleukopenia, a virus that claims the lives of most kittens her age and size. It is one of the harshest diseases we encounter. But Mona didn’t stop fighting, and neither did we. More medicine, fluids, nutrition, patience. Sleepless nights. Hope stitched together with science. Slowly, impossibly, she began to turn back toward life.

Now, months later, Mona is done fighting infections. She has scars in her eyes from that first illness. She is still small for her age, still trying to catch up, still building strength. But she is safe. She purrs. She plays. She eats with gusto. She naps curled against the person who never gave up on her. She is growing into the body that once seemed too fragile to survive. And someday — when she’s ready — she’ll meet the family who will give her the forever home that once seemed far beyond the reach of her tiny, perfect paws.

This is what it means to be your animal shelter.

CAS isn’t simply a place where unwanted animals wait. It is a place where vulnerable lives are protected and nurtured — where healing is pursued, where kindness permeates, where joy flourishes. It is a vibrant hub of activity, where staff and volunteers cheer over weight gains, celebrate first tail wags, sigh with relief after good test results and mourn the losses together when they come. It is a place where the community gathers — not to feel pity, but to gather around compassion.

Your shelter is not sad, it is not lonely, it is not where animals go because no one wants them.

Your shelter is where animals go to be protected, treated, cherished and prepared for the lives waiting ahead of them.

The next time you think of the Cheyenne Animal Shelter, think of Mona. Think of what it means to lift a life out of danger, to nourish it through hardship, to believe it can thrive. That belief, shared by all who help, is the foundation of our work.

A shelter isn’t a building. A shelter is a promise.

At the Cheyenne Animal Shelter, we’re proud to keep it.