Last week, the Austin City Council approved a $20,000 land purchase next to the Mower County Humane Society to build a new city animal shelter. This purchase has been three years in the making and we salute the council and city staff for taking an important step to improving the city pound and increasing the odds for wayward animals to return to their owners or find a new forever home.

Anyone who has been to the current city animal shelter in southwest Austin can tell you it clearly doesn’t suit any animal. The shelter has been around for about 40 years or so, and its cramped space, dank atmosphere and grimy layout aren’t ideal for animals or the community service officers who work with them.

Humane Society volunteers have worked with city staff for years to get animals out of the pound as quickly as possible. Several years ago, the two groups decided to work a little more closely — the city would try to build a new animal shelter next to the Mower County Humane Society’s new building.

It took about two years for all the pieces to fall into place for the humane society to get land at 22nd Street Southeast, and their new shelter was finished last year.

Now it’s the city’s turn. About $370,000 has been set aside since 2011 to build a new shelter, and the council increased the shelter budget $10,000 last week to ensure outdoor dog cages would have proper roofing and awning space.

We support the city’s foresight to work more closely with the humane society, and we are glad to see the council is willing to spend a little more to do a good job on this shelter. Having the two shelters so close to each other will cut down on transportation expenses for both groups for starters, and we expect to see more efficiencies develop as the city shelter is created.

The council could approve a bid on the project as early as next month, and the new shelter could be finished by fall. We are glad to see the city move forward on a deserving, long overdue project and we hope for the best for Mower County’s puppies and kitties.