I've driven past the Humane Society on Benson Road probably a hundred times — it's that low brick building east of Cliff Avenue, set back from the road with the big parking lot that's always more full than you'd expect on a Tuesday afternoon. Last time I went inside, I was there to write about their volunteer program, but I ended up sitting on the floor of the cat room for twenty minutes with a tabby named Rocket who had absolutely no interest in being adopted by anyone, including me.
The thing about this place — and I mean this as the highest compliment — is that it feels exactly like what it is. Not a boutique. Not a showroom. It's a working shelter that processes hundreds of animals every month, and some days you can tell. The floors are clean but worn. The kennels are well-maintained but institutional. There's a faint smell that even the best ventilation system in South Dakota couldn't completely eliminate.
What gets me is the staff. I watched an adoption counselor spend forty minutes talking a young couple out of a high-energy Australian Shepherd because they lived in a downtown apartment with no yard — she steered them toward an older beagle mix instead, and you could tell she'd rather lose the adoption fee than see that dog come back in three months. That's the kind of honesty that doesn't make it into the brochure.
They run low-cost spay and neuter clinics, they take strays from all over Minnehaha County, and their website hasn't been redesigned since 2015 — which somehow makes me trust them more. I saw a woman in the parking lot last week loading a pit bull into her backseat, both of them looking equally nervous and equally relieved, and I thought: yeah, that's exactly right.
— Grace
The thing about this place — and I mean this as the highest compliment — is that it feels exactly like what it is.