Furever Home Dog Sanctuary hopes to begin bringing in dogs by late summer; FurEver Coffee donating to cause

FurEver Home Coffee in Crystal Lake and Furever Home Dog Sanctuary near Richmond are in no way related.

But FurEver Home Coffee’s legal team gave owner Matthew Ryan a heads-up that he might run into issues, because David Kerpel’s Furever Home Dog Sanctuary had trademarked the name in Illinois.

Ryan reached out to David Kerpel, who with his wife, Erin, are president and vice president of the nonprofit organization working to build a dog sanctuary to give hard-to-adopt dogs a second chance.

Ryan and David Kerpel met for the first time this week. Ryan has pledged to send a portion of his coffee bean roasting business to the nonprofit, one of the things he planned to do when he started the company. And Kerpel gave the thumbs-up for Ryan to use the FurEver Home name.

People who drink coffee “like to sit on the porch and sit with their dog while reading the paper,” Ryan, a dog lover himself, said. It makes the two companies compatible.

When it opens, the sanctuary is designed to give a second chance to dogs that otherwise would be euthanized or spend their entire lives in a shelter because of breed, age or health, Kerpel said. They hope to begin housing dogs in late summer or early fall.

Getting the facility ready for them has been a long process.

Kerpel grew up in Wilmette, and the family lives in Deerfield. They began looking for a site – at least 10 acres with a barn that was no more than a 45-minute drive from home – to house his dream dog sanctuary.

Two previous attempts to buy land in Wisconsin for the sanctuary fell apart because he would have needed a special use permit from those counties. Neighbors spoke against his plan at local zoning board hearings, and the permits were denied.

“Neighbors showed up from a mile away” at one of those hearings. “That was an eye-opener and disheartening,” Kerpel said. “But my best quality is perseverance. There is very little that can stop me.”

His brother then reminded him that in McHenry County, an animal sanctuary was a permitted use. That is when the Kerpel’s found the property, a former horse barn on Zarnstorff Road outside Richmond.

The Richmond property would, however, need a variance because the horse barn had only a 20-foot setback, instead of the 100-foot setback required for dogs.

McHenry County Planning and Zoning officials suggested a compromise, and Kerpel agreed. They would build outdoor kennels and runs for their rescue dogs on the side of the horse barn, farthest from the neighbors, and limit the number of dogs they would take in.

Furever Home sanctuary received its permit from McHenry County in February 2023 and closed on the property in April.

I want to give the dogs the best life possible.”

—  David Kerpel, Furever Home Dog Sanctuary founder

“I want to give the dogs the best life possible,” Kerpel said. So instead of hundreds of dogs roaming free inside the sanctuary, they will limit the dogs to about 20 – the number of kennels they plan to build.

“We changed the mission,” Kerpel said, but kept to the ideal of helping abandoned dogs.

What they are not, he said, is a shelter. They do not plan to offer straight-up adoptions. There are no signs noting their location in hopes that will prevent irresponsible dog owners from dropping off adult dogs or puppies they cannot care for.

They do plan to have an on-site manager for the dogs, offer volunteers a chance to work with animals and work to make them adoptable. Then, they can rotate in dogs to help them live their best lives, Kerpel said.

Kerpel won’t be allowed to determine which dogs they will take in. That job is delegated to one of the nonprofit’s committees. He has a tendency to go up to every dog he meets to pet and get face-to-face with them, whether with an owner or on its own on the streets, Kerpel said.

The dog’s owners “might think I am nuts,” he said.