Wiktionary
n. 1 An organization that provides temporary homes for stray pet animals. 2 A facility providing such shelter.
Wikipedia
An animal shelter or pound is a place where stray, lost, abandoned or surrendered animals, mostly dogs and cats, and sometimes sick or wounded wildlife are brought. While no-kill shelters exist, it is sometimes policy to euthanize sick animals, and any animal that is not claimed quickly enough by a previous or new owner. In Europe, of 30 countries included in a survey, all but three (Germany, Greece, and Italy) permitted the killing of healthy stray dogs. Critics believe the new term "animal shelter" is generally a euphemism for the older term "pound". The word "pound" had its origins in the animal pounds of agricultural communities, where stray livestock would be penned or impounded until claimed by their owners. Some shelters even have sick tropical animals.
Usage examples of "animal shelter".
But for the most part, the people who offered themselves for sale eyed the passersby warily, in darting glances whose expressions were fixed between hope and fear-much too reminiscent of the dogs in the animal shelter where her father had now and then taken her to adopt a pet.
So if he knew he was going to be leaving town, would he have left his dog at an animal shelter?
OK, tonight I'll drive to the animal shelter and break down the fence and kidnap the damn things.
What you got was something that looked like a refugee from the local animal shelter.
Inside the field, a potholed metalled track led to the barn, in fact a large animal shelter and feeding station.
She ran her animal shelter with private funds and kept to herself.
Over the years she ran what must have been the first unofficial animal shelter in Virginia.
Then, while all that soaked in, we made him feel a part of the animal shelter instead of an enemy.
She called an animal shelter and a man wearing a denim jacket and heavy gloves came and shot it with a tranquilizer dart.
He supported the Church heavily and a string of charities from an orphanage to an animal shelter.