Clean Air Spotlight: Animal Rescue League of Iowa (ARL)

Founded in 1926, the Animal Rescue League of Iowa (ARL) has served its community for close to a century and, today, is the largest non-profit animal shelter in the Hawkeye State. From modest beginnings, ARL has continually grown. In 2008, the shelter moved into its impressive 43,000 square-foot main campus building to accommodate the many thousands of animals it cares for each year. The organization recently made national news when it rescued more than 100 cats from one of the worst hoarding cases it had seen in over a decade. These cats joined the more than 1,100 cats already being housed at the shelter at the time. The potential cost of infectious disease spreading with those types of numbers―treatment and medications required and adoptions delayed―is almost incalculable.

As described by Tom L. Colvin, ARL’s CEO, a few years after moving into the new main campus building, ARL was introduced to PetAirapy. “Although we had a state-of-the-art HVAC system,” he says, “we thought the PetAirapy system would work in concert to help with disease control, particularly with a quickly rising cat population.”

Because, says Colvin, “we do believe PetAirapy aided in that effort,” in 2017 when they opened a two-story 6,000 square-foot building called Clowder House, “we naturally added PetAirapy to the HVAC system.” Since then, ARL has also added ceiling mounted PetAirapy units to all of their animal and surgical rooms.

Each animal care facility PetAirapy works with is evaluated for the best results possible for that particular location based on air flow, room design and capacity, and isolation and surgery room size and locations within the facility. And that’s exactly how the company approached the UV system design for ARL. The results have paid off in healthier animals and faster adoptions for this remarkable organization–and there are no better results than that.

“Disease control, particularly upper respiratory, is a challenge for many shelters and requires a combination of good HVAC, cleaning, and veterinary protocols,” says Colvin. “But we think PetAirapy plays an important role in doing all you can for the animals in our care.”

For more information on ARL’s service for people and pets from across the state of Iowa through its programs, which include pet adoption, humane education, pet behavior training, spay/neuter, animal cruelty intervention, and much more, visit https://www.arl-iowa.org.

About PetAirapy

For more than a decade, PetAirapy has manufactured UVGI sanitizing technology for both animal and human healthcare. For more information on PetAirapy and its UV sanitizing technology visit https://aerapyanimalhealth.com.