I’d seen the flyer looking for volunteers to foster senior dogs taped to a lamppost on Divisadero Street in 2009.

Dog obsessed but traveling frequently for work and unable to adopt one of my own, I called the number. Come to our headquarters in Potrero, they told me after a chat. We’ll match you with a pup.

I expected an animal shelter, or at least a storefront. Instead, just two years into its mission as a rescue for dogs seven and up—those who often languish unadopted for months before being euthanized for no other reason than age—Muttville was embedded in the home of its founder and CEO, Sherri Franklin.

Inside, dogs toodled around as volunteers took turns cuddling, walking, and cleaning. That day I picked up Honey Bear, a sweet-as-pie senior Pomeranian. Over the next two years, I’d bring home a dozen others who, despite their age, had so much life left to live.

Fifteen years later, I stand once again at Muttville’s door for the first time. At the end of August, the rescue organization migrated from the small space next to the SF SPCA to which they’d moved in 2011, to a three-building estate crafted with the pro bono help of star designer Ken Fulk.

Muttville Founder and CEO, Sherri Franklin.(Droid Gallucci)

In their first year, 2007, Muttville found homes for 27 elderly dogs; they’ve rescued more than that, 38, this week alone. They wander around the main adoption area and snooze on soft beds and couches as I greet Franklin with an embrace. “Look how far you’ve come,” I say, holding back tears.

Franklin’s idea of a dog rescue has always looked very different from the rows of kennels and stressed-out animals that characterize almost every shelter in the world. There are no cages at Muttville. The dogs, literally, have the run of the place.

“We wanted to make this feel like a home for humans and dogs,” she explains. An animal shelter shouldn’t be a dreary place of stress and sadness, it should be a place of joy and hope.

The Muttville team thought out everything from the type of flooring (“they needed to not click and clack but be easy to clean,” says Franklin) to a high-powered HVAC system that would clear out the most offensive smells to an outdoor courtyard made from material that stays cool even on the hottest of days. There are comfortable couches everywhere for volunteers—and visitors—to sit for a snuggle, and bespoke color-drenched gates that can be opened and closed to break up the space as needed.

“Everything here, all of the furniture, is donated,” says Franklin. Most of it came from Fulk’s warehouse, a fellow dog lover and personal friend of Franklin. His signature aesthetic is everywhere, with playful dog-print wallpapers that brighten up spaces from the front desk to the grooming salon, The Wilsey’s Glam Shampoochery, where new pups get their glow-up after a visit to the vet. Against one wall are the Painted Ladies, bright offices and small quiet rooms for more sensitive dogs that echo the architecture of Alamo Square’s famous Victorians. In the celadon kitchen, they prepare the dogs’ high-quality, real food meals donated by Just Food for Dogs.

Offices and quiet rooms are designed to echo SF's famous Painted Ladies.(Eric Louis Haines)

Franklin’s slow-walking me towards the veterinary building when a small, wiry terrier topples flat on his side and begins to yelp, his tiny body shaking uncontrollably. Franklin leaps to action.

“It’s just a seizure, it’s just a seizure,” she calls out to the volunteers who’ve come running to his cries and kneels down, lightly resting her hands on his torso and neck until his tremors slow. “He’s ok, it’s just a seizure,” Franklin says again, gently scooping up the dog and asking a volunteer to bring him to the vet across the courtyard. “They can be scary if you don’t know what’s happening but I’ve seen them so often.”

Seizures are, unfortunately, more common in the senior dog population than in younger pups. So are dental problems, mobility issues, and a variety of other health concerns associated with aging. It doesn’t help that “a lot of the dogs that come to us have never been to the vet,” says Franklin. In the immaculate, modern vet clinic, she points out a large mason jar full of rotten teeth they’ve extracted from their new arrivals. It took just four months to fill it.

In their new home, Muttville has a full time veterinarian and four vet techs on staff. Other pet health professionals, like an acupuncturist, visit regularly. They do everything they can do to set a dog up for success in their next chapter: spay and neuter, extract infected teeth, remove worrisome tumors and eyeballs, run blood work. On average, they spend $1,600 on each dog before adoption. This year, that will be close to 1,300 dogs altogether.

A volunteer reads to adoptable senior dogs in the Cuddle Den.(Droid Gallucci)

There’s more to come to the buoyant new Muttville over the next few months including classes, grief support groups, and virtual workshops for other rescues inspired by the organization’s homey model. The Cuddle Club, a social club for dog-loving human seniors, has already started meeting twice a week and soon visitors, whether they’re in the market to adopt or not, will be able to hang out with the dogs six days a week from 10am to 5pm.

Virtually everything Muttville does flips the traditional dog rescue model upside down and Franklin dreams of a future in which shelters will be happy places where dogs awaiting their forever homes are loved instead of isolated, and volunteers and visitors are celebrated.

“There’s a sense of excitement here,” she says. “I want to help everybody, raise everybody up—dogs and humans.” Her leadership and passion for these previously unwanted ragamuffins is nothing short of inspiring.

We’ve talked for almost two hours by the time we return to the main adoption room to say goodbye.

“Who are you adopting,” Franklin asks a woman, sitting with a dog on her lap and paperwork in her hand. “I’m actually adopting three dogs,” she replies. Franklin gives me a knowing look. That’s just how infectious Muttville’s mission is.

Senior dogs, she says, “You get to give them their best, last chapter and they say thank you every day. They really teach you about living in the moment.”

// On Tuesday, October 29th, 7x7 Social Club is hosting Witches & Beasts, a special Halloween benefit for Muttville. The shelter's cutest creatures are dressing up for the occasion! Come out to cuddle and learn how to adopt a Muttville dog, plus book a tarot or aura reading and enjoy bewitching N/A elixirs; 4pm to 7pm at 524 Washington St., Jackson Square; tickets at tickettailor.com.

To visit, volunteer, foster, or adopt, find Muttville at 750 Florida St. (Mission-Potrero), muttville.org.

Volunteer groomer Cindy Perry giving a new arrival their glow up in the Shampoochery.(Michael Joy)