When the sun sets over the Sandia Mountains, they turn bright pink, the color of the inside of a ripe watermelon. Locals say that’s how the mountains got their name: Sandia means watermelon in Spanish. That’s also how Watermelon Mountain Ranch Animal Center, New Mexico’s largest no-kill shelter, got its name.

In full view of the Sandia Mountains, the modest but efficient complex of animal cottages, two mobile adoption units, a mobile disaster relief trailer and mobile homes sits on a 10-acre stretch of undeveloped desert just outside Albuquerque. But the view isn’t the most spectacular thing about Watermelon Mountain Ranch. This innovative shelter continually invents new ways to go beyond rescue and adoption.

By partnering with municipal shelters, rehabilitating hard-luck cases, hitting the road with mobile adoption units and offering adopters free training classes, Watermelon Mountain Ranch is making a serious dent in New Mexico’s sky-high euthanasia rate. The ranch found homes for over 4,500 animals last year, but the dedicated staff considers that just a beginning.

“We have become a household word in the Southwest,” says Lee Di Clemente, who founded the ranch with his wife, Sophia, in 1996 and now serves as president of the board of directors. “We get over 8,000 hits a week on our Web site from all over the country. People know us and they know if they adopt from us, they get the best of the best. Best of all, when animals come here, whether they are adopted or not, they have a home for life.”

A Desert Dream
Tall and lanky with a weathered face and a cowboy’s easy manner, Lee Di Clemente looks right at home in the desert, although he comes from upstate New York. “I’m half Native American, and I first visited New Mexico in the 1960s,” Di Clemente reminisces. “I loved the spiritual nature of this place, so when Sophia and I decided to get married and move to a warmer climate, I knew deep in my heart that New Mexico was where I wanted to be.”

Di Clemente likes to joke that Sophia decided he didn’t really need to retire. “She thought my retirement fund could be put to a better use, so we started rescuing,” Di Clemente says.

The couple moved to New Mexico in 1994 and began volunteering with a local animal rescue group, but after a philosophical disagreement about euthanasia, the Di Clementes decided to strike out on their own. A friend suggested the Di Clementes visit Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in southern Utah.

“We visited Best Friends and met with the key players, then came back here, bought 10 acres at a good price, drilled a well, put in a septic system, then got a loan, and built the cattery and the kennel,” Di Clemente says. “We are now a full-blown operation, although I consider us still in our infancy.”

Today, the ranch has 10 full-time staff and several contract employees. Sophia Di Clemente, the organization’s executive director, works full time without a salary. A voluntary board of directors and an advisory board offer advice and counsel, but hundreds of dedicated volunteers make the daily operation of Watermelon Mountain Ranch possible.

“We could never do what we do without our volunteers,” says communications director Michael Davis. “They make it all possible.”

‘Nothing Bigger Than a Basset’
It’s a typical Saturday at Watermelon Mountain Ranch: 11 Basset mixes have just come in from Clovis, N.M., and seven dogs and cats have been adopted. “That puts us up by four,” says manager Robin Moskowitz, who volunteered at the ranch for two years but has been a full-time employee for five.

“I told the shelter, ‘Nothing bigger than a Basset Hound.’ I guess they took that literally!” she laughs.

Moskowitz has an infectious laugh and a voice people readily recognize. She is the “Dog Lady” on radio station 103.3, where she visits the morning show every Friday to talk about pet adoption, bringing an adoptable “Pet of the Week” with her.

As Moskowitz sits at her desk in the office, processing paperwork, Sophia Di Clemente comes in, tired from the long day. Petite with delicate features and blond hair upswept in braids, Di Clemente has a lilting British accent. “I could never do this without Robin,” she says, collapsing in a chair. “She does all those things I could never do. She can handle anything.”

Watermelon Mountain Ranch is staffed 24/7 and open to the public five days a week for animal surrender, adoptions and participation in outreach programs. The office is in a small mobile home with a deck. Next door, another mobile home houses a modest but state-of-the-art veterinary facility with a surgical theater. Paid and volunteer veterinarians and veterinary technicians work in this building, spaying, neutering and treating healthy, sick and injured animals.

“They’ve performed more than 15,000 spay/neuter operations in this facility,” Davis says. Medical director Robert Blake, D.V.M., who helped get the clinic on its feet, stands ready whenever the clinic needs veterinary advice. “The staff, the volunteers and the Di Clementes work so hard, I feel compelled to help them,” says Blake, who volunteers his services. “I help train the veterinary technicians as well as the volunteers who help in the clinic. And I usually have to spend some time playing with the puppies.”

Beside the veterinary clinic, Watermelon Mountain Ranch has a quarantine area for new arrivals. “Animals that come in are held for five days. If they aren’t reclaimed, they go into quarantine and are vaccinated, sterilized, tested, treated for parasites, then absorbed into our system,” Davis says.

The Humane Education Center located behind the veterinary clinic features training and kennel facilities and is home to about 20 dogs that need behavioral problems addressed before they are ready for adoption. “Some of these guys are pretty fearful, some are dog-aggressive, and others are fence climbers,” Davis says. “Our staff and trained volunteers work with these dogs every day to address their issues, socialize them and get them ready for adoption. These are the animals that would have been euthanized in traditional shelters.”

The area includes an enclosed play yard for exercise and training, as well as housing for a few permanent residents like “Lola,” a Pit Bull rescued from a dog fighting ring. “We would love to find a home for Lola, but she’s 14, battle-scarred, and although she’s improved, she’s still pretty dog-aggressive,” Davis says, stroking the people-friendly dog who is wagging her tail and posing for photos. “If she never finds a home, that’s OK. She’s well-loved and cared for here.”

Behind the quarantine area, the acreage features various outbuildings including Earl’s Catnip Inn. “This is one of our jewels in the crown,” says Davis. “We have enough room for about 60 cats.”

The cattery features two separate indoor rooms that lead to two separate screened outdoor areas featuring rafters, ladders and plenty of sunny and shady spots for climbing and catnapping. “We also have at least one cat in every other room on the ranch to help the dogs get used to cats,” says Davis.

In the Canine Cottage, about 36 dogs live in roomy kennels, each with access to fenced outdoor play areas. Dogs are grouped together according to who gets along with whom. Volunteers and staff members walk the dogs and play with them every day.

Watermelon Mountain Ranch has planned five more canine cottages, three more catteries, a learning center, nondenominational chapel and an expansion of its Humane Education Center. The ranch also plans to secure additional mobile adoption sites, double its volunteer recruitment efforts and expand its veterinary medical services.

Taking Adoptions on the Road
Watermelon Mountain Ranch is fun to visit, but the Di Clementes know that the best way to find adopters is to hit the road. Every Saturday, mobile adoption and special events manager Connie Kruesman heads out in one of the ranch’s two large mobile adoption rigs, along with seven to 10 volunteers and caretaker Edward Arguello.

Sometimes they park in front of PetSmart near the mall in Rio Rancho. Other times they go to retail locations in Albuquerque or surrounding areas or partner with other shelters for large-scale adoptathons.

The rescue requires potential adopters to complete a questionnaire aimed at screening out inappropriate homes. A phone interview is conducted and sometimes home visits as well. The adoption fee starts at $125, more than most area rescues, but not a deterrent to people with a genuine interest in finding the ideal companion. Watermelon Mountain Ranch requires adopters to return any dog or cat if they can no longer care for them.

The ranch’s other mobile vehicle is dedicated to disaster relief. The staff traveled to New Orleans in 2005 to help rescue over 1,500 animals displaced or lost during Hurricane Katrina. They also use the unit to help rescue pets during New Mexico’s wildfire season.

Kruesman helps organize the ranch’s fundraising events, including a Home 4 the Holidays event in December, a Valen­tine’s Day Adoptathon at PetSmart, a World Wide Adoptathon and the annual Fur Ball gala.

Watermelon Mountain Ranch used to have a return rate similar to other shelters. Today, that rate is below 2 percent. Davis attributes the difference to trainers Heather and Rick Dillender of A Fresh Perspective Dog Training. The ranch offers adopters a free five-week care and obedience course taught by the Dillenders at the Star Heights Community Center in Rio Rancho.

Adopter Lee McConnell says it never would have occurred to her to take her new dog, “Jazz,” to obedience classes. “But it was free, so we did it, and it’s been really amazing what we’ve learned,” she says. “I think the class is really more for me.” “There are very few behaviors that can’t be rehabilitated, and 90 percent of the things that get dogs dumped back at shelters are preventable with small changes,” says Rick Dillender. “We show people how to manage those. We typically run 20 to 25 families through the training program every month.”

Davis knows that no news is bad news and that publicity is a crucial part of raising money. “If they don’t hear about you, they won’t know all the good you are doing and you won’t get the help you need,” he says.

Thus, Davis works to promote and publicize the facility’s community outreach programs. Children with physical and developmental disabilities visit the ranch each week to spend time with the animals, and troubled teens from the juvenile justice system are given volunteer opportunities in the Youth In Transition Program.

“Many of those kids come back to volunteer on their own after the program,” says Davis. “They can relate to these homeless, displaced animals, and it makes a big impact on their lives. All these community outreach efforts spread the word about us and help more animals get adopted.”

One of Watermelon Mountain Ranch’s most successful ventures has been its recent partner-ship with the City of Albu­querque Animal Welfare Department.

To earn funding for the ranch and also help the city shelter reduce its euthanasia rate, ranch manager Moskowitz visits the city facility nearly every week to select animals targeted for euthanasia to take back to the ranch.

“The average cost to a municipality to care for a stray animal is about $280, whether the animal is adopted or euthanized,” Davis says. “This partnership can cut those costs in half for the shelter and save thousands of animals from euthanasia. Since our partnership, the City of Albuquerque has for the first time had a live exit rate that is higher than its euthanasia rate.

“This kind of joint effort steps back and looks at the big picture rather than focusing on the problem in isolated communities. When municipal shelters and private rescues partner, everybody wins,” Davis says. “It doesn’t make sense to do it any other way.”

At the end of the day, the guiding principle behind everything that happens at Watermelon Mountain Ranch is the shelter’s no-kill philosophy. “Our mission is to give all our animals a better life than they had before they came to us,” says Davis.

The Di Clementes rest easier now than when they first got involved in rescue and saw “thousands of beautiful dogs and cats go to their graves in the county landfill every month. It made us both sick at heart,” says Sophia Di Clemente. “We knew there had to be a better way.”

Watermelon Mountain Ranch Goes Green
An engineer and consultant to many national corporations and the departments of Energy and Defense on renewable and alternative energy planning, waste management, fraud protection and other projects, Lee Di Clemente is a troubleshooter by nature.

“He saves the government a lot of money,” says Michael Davis, communications director. “Right now, he’s working on a program to transform dairy waste into usable methane energy. He brings those same skills to Watermelon Mountain Ranch.”

One of Di Clemente’s priorities for the no-kill shelter is to turn the place green. The mobile adoption vehicles and mobile homes on the property are all reclaimed and refurbished. New construction consists of rammed earth, stone slab and reclaimed cinder block, brick and other discarded construction supplies from landfills. The shelter uses natural resources via radiant-heated floors and open-air ventilation.

Eventually, Di Clemente hopes to install wind turbines so the ranch can generate its own energy. “If we could install those turbines, we could be selling energy back to the power company,” Di Clemente says. “The move would also help secure Watermelon Mountain Ranch’s reputation as one of the first green shelters in the country. This is the way the world is going. Shelters need to keep up or fall behind. We plan to lead.”

Save a Life, Win a House
What would you do if somebody gave you a house?

If you rescue animals, you would probably leverage that gift into a fundraising event. That’s what Watermelon Mountain Ranch is doing with the four-bedroom, two-bath house with mountain views on one-third acre in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

Donated by DGM Solutions, a property company owned by longtime Watermelon Mountain Ranch supporter Diane McDermott, the home has a large fenced yard, detached studio, half basketball court and potting shed. “We’re selling no more than 2,500 tickets at $100 each,” says communications director Michael Davis. “The winner gets the house or $100,000 cash.”

The winner will be chosen on March 29 and announced publicly two weeks later. To find out more about the raffle, take a virtual tour of the house or buy a ticket, go to www.wmranch.org.