The public will have the chance to sniff out the McKean County
SPCA kennels before the dogs at noon Friday for an open house at
the SPCA, 80 Glenwood Ave.

The 24 new kennels will be completed Friday morning, and the
public will be able to view the kennels for the first time Friday.
Appetizers and refreshments will be served.

Ed Rodgers, assistant manager at the SPCA, said the dogs won’t
be moving in until Saturday morning, after the open house.

“All the monies (for the project) were donated for a memorial
for Michael Quinn Wick as a memorial to him and his dog, Rock,
(who) were killed in an automobile accident,” Mark Luciano, the
general contractor, said. “He had adopted the dog from the
SPCA.”

Wick’s mother, Deborah Quinn Wick, is designing a memorial
plaque to put on the building.

“(The Wick family) wanted to donate a kennel that you won’t have
to worry about the maintenance on for 40 years,” Luciano said. “I
think that’s what we’ve done.”

Luciano pointed out the cement blocks, called glazing blocks,
are coated with a clay, shiny tile to handle a lot of water so it
doesn’t have to be painted. He said all the metal in the building
is made of aluminum and stainless steel so it won’t rust and will
hold up for many years.

“Michelle (Vecillo) has given a lot of input,” Luciano said. “We
have gone around to other kennels, looked at other kennels to see
what we were putting in these kennels to have state-of-the-art
kennels.”

Luciano said Richard Gorton, president of the board of directors
for the McKean County SPCA, also gave input on the construction of
the kennels.

“Mark Luciano and Michelle Vecillo, spokesman for the Wick
family, put it together,” Rodgers said. “They did all the work,
looking at different shelters…and getting the plans together. There
were several different subcontractors. They’re all local
contractors.”

J.A. Luciano and Sons Builders were the general contractors.
Some of the subcontractors included Minich Electric, Bavacqua
Plumbing, Cavallaro Painting and Jim Siffrin, masonry. Luciano said
the floor has an epoxy coating, which was done by Don Britton at
JRZ Services, and the kennels have air-to-air exchanges, done by
Troutman Heating and Plumbing, that filters and cleans the air. The
aluminum drains were made by Micale Fabricators and designed by
Jeff Pascarella in Bradford.

“The drains are designed to allow feces and dog food down the
drain and not plug them up,” Luciano said.

The furnace and plumbing was done by Ray Bavacqua with in-floor
heat or radiant floors, where tubes in the concrete heats the
floor. Luciano said the heating system is 98-percent proficient,
which will help the SPCA save on heating bills.

The kennels also include “lick it” valves, which are automatic
water valves activated when the dog’s tongue touches the end,
similar to water dispensers used for guinea pigs.

Acoustical baffles will hang from the ceiling to cut down the
noise of the dogs barking by lowering the decimal of sound.

Luciano said the building is well insulated and encloses the
dogs behind large garage doors. He said the old kennel had a gravel
parking lot that children used to throw rocks at the dogs through
the chain-link fencing. Now, they won’t be able to do that with the
garage doors and state-of-the-art aluminum and tempered glass
kennel doors in place of the chain-link fence. The kennel doors
also help cut down on the noise and makes it easier for people to
view the dogs.

The kennels will also be handicapped accessible with a ramp that
is eight feet and eight inches wide.

Rodgers said the new storage room and quarantine room of the new
addition will be completed after Christmas along with the regular
isolation room, medical room, puppy room, kitchen and the rest of
the back half of the building being completely redone. Rodgers said
the construction of the foundation and roof for the storage room
and quarantine room have already been started and should be
finished in the next two weeks.

Luciano said they started the project in August when they
completely removed the 40-year-old kennel.

While the work on the new kennels is being completed, the dogs
have been kept in 24 outdoor kennels with roofs across the street
behind the Bradford Area Water Authority facility.

“We wanted to thank the Bradford Water Authority for their
parking lot and facility, for letting us use their parking lot to
house our dogs over there for the last three months,” Rodgers
said.