New facility has room for 150 dogs and 140 ccats.

New $15.5 million building replaces old facility in Auburn Hills.

Shelter includes and X-ray machine and an operating room.

One of the most expensive homes in Oakland County belongs to an unlikely family — stray cats and dogs.

The county Wednesday opened its new Animal Shelter and Adoption Center, a $15.5-million facility built to house as many as 150 dogs and 140 cats. The 35,400-square-foot center replaces an older, smaller facility on Brown Road in Auburn Hills.

"By relocating from Auburn Hills to Pontiac, we expect to see more pet adoptions because the building will be easier for the public to find and more accessible because of its central location," County Executive Brooks Patterson told a crowd of about 200 people gathered for the ribbon cutting.

The new facility is located on the county campus, on County Center Drive East, just east of Telegraph Road in Pontiac. It's across the street from the Medical Examiner's office and just east of the Sheriff's administrative office.

The building — described by Patterson as one of the best of its kind in the U.S. — includes 12 outdoor dog runs, two outdoor play areas and an X-ray facility and an operating room for pet surgery, including spaying and neutering.

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"This building was a challenge," said architect Steve Auger of Auger Klein Aller, a Lake Orion firm that designed the facility. "It has everything that a hospital has."

In the previous facility, veterinarians performed surgery in a cramped operating room built into an old storage closet.

"It's a lot more room," said veterinarian Jeff Fortna.

Among the amenities are an air handling system that turns over all the air in the facility every four minutes, reducing odors, but more important, making the air healthier for animals and staffers alike.

"I like that I have a facility that doesn't smell," said manager Bob Gatt. "The animals are already exhibited tendencies to be less aggressive."

A special cleaning system pipes water through the facility, adds pet-friendly disinfectants to it and has taps that employees can use to hose down cages and other areas.

Floors throughout the building are coated in a special sealant that helps prevent bacteria growth and floor drains throughout allow the rinse water to drain quickly.

"In the old facility, we used soap and water and then we used bleach," Gatt said. "But bleach isn't very good for the animals."

The outdoor play areas are covered with a special artificial turf designed for pets. Shelter crews scoop up the animal poop, but the turf is designed for urine to pass right through it. At night, special sprinklers rinse the turf, which drains into a septic system.

The front entrance even includes a heated sidewalk to melt snow and ice. That way, pets don't have to walk on salted ground, which is bad for their feet and bad for the floors if it's tracked inside.

About a dozen protesters attended the ribbon cutting, holding up placards criticizing the county for euthanizing too many animals and for what they said was a failure to regulate private kennels more vigorously.

Patterson brushed off the protesters, saying the facility was among the best in the country and criticisms are misleading.

"We're giving them a world-class facility, you'd think they'd be grateful," Patterson said.

About 15% of 4,000 or so animals that come into the county facility each year are euthanized, and the new facility, like the old one, is equipped with a crematorium.

But Gatt said not all animals can be saved. Some are too sick, others are too dangerous. Of the 112 dogs in the facility currently, 75 are pit bulls, Gatt said.

Many pit bulls can be adopted, but the county requires prospective adopters to work through a rescue agency that determines the suitability of their home for a such an animal.

"For us, public safety comes first," he said.

The county is selling the old Brown Road building, Gatt said.

Contact John Wisely: 248-858-2262 or jwisely@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jwisely.