Land of 10,000 Stories: Purr-fect music

ALBERT LEA, Minn. -- The interior of the Freeborn County Humane Society all but begs for comparison. But first someone would have to find out if anyone even runs jet engines under tin roofs.

"It's loud in here, oh yeah!" says shelter director Christa Steiler." "There are people who won't even go back here anymore."

The problem isn't really the dogs that have filled the shelter to capacity. They're just doing what comes naturally: Barking like crazy.

It's the cats that also share the space in the crowded shelter. Think of it. Their natural enemies -- just a few feet away -- barking incessantly.

One might call it cat hell, but for one little piece of heaven.

"This is a Stoney End Therapy Harp," explains Rachel Christensen as she pulls the straps of her instrument over her shoulders.

Clear back to high school Christensen has been playing the harp -- for people. Last summer she broadened her audience to cats.

Instantly shelter workers noticed the change in their cats. "I love how it makes them relax," said Steiler. "Calms them down."

And if there was ever a place that needed some calming, it was the Freeborn County Humane Society last summer.

"Emotions were running high at that point in time, people and the animals," recalls Christensen.

The shelter was getting set for an expansion last summer. Plans had already been drawn up to double the shelter's size and give the cats their own quiet room. Best of all, the funding was already in place, thanks to a $150,000 gift from an anonymous donor.

The money sat safely in escrow at Albert Lea Abstract Company, a longstanding business owned by a respected former Freeborn County commissioner named Linda Tuttle.

But her county board portrait is not the one in the newspaper these days. Instead, it's the mugshot taken after Tuttle was arrested for allegedly gambling away the money entrusted her by the Humane Society and others.

"She took every penny of our $150,000 dollars, yes, it's all gone," said Dee Amberg, a board member at the Freeborn County Humane Society.

Tuttle was charged with wire fraud in federal court and is awaiting trial.

Christensen read the news, picked up her harp, and headed for the shelter. "It was nice to be able to come in and change the environment a little bit, even for an hour at a time."

Half a year later she's still playing. Once a week Christensen slips away from her Shell gas station, the one she named after her old dog Ole. In the back she sells used books. Profits go to the shelter.

It's harder to put a price on what her music has done to calm the frayed nerves of the cats in the overcrowded building.

"I can see immediately what goes on, the change that comes over these animals," said Amberg. "They're almost mesmerized by her."

On a recent visit Christensen spent extra time with petite cat named Chance, who got a second one after being found half frozen on the side of a road.

"Chance got frostbit and lost a leg and part of his tail," explains Christensen, as she plays a chorus of 'Can't Help Falling in Love.' "I can't help falling in love with this cat," she says.

At least once during every visit Christensen tries to bring some calm to dogs' side of the shelter as well, but it's always the cats who seem to become almost one with the music.

Christensen hopes good music will be followed by good homes for the shelter's cats. "We just do the best we can while they're here to make life good," she said.

It's not exactly heaven, but for an hour a week Rachel Christensen makes it sound like it.

(Copyright 2011 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)