Natalie Ganon plays with Jack, an American bulldog mix, at the Nevada SPCA No-Kill Animal Sanctuary. Photos by Craig L. Moran. Nevada SPCA executive director Doug Duke displays a homeless, but safe, friend named Manola.

Kay Ventura demands to know whether Natalie Ganon lives in a house or an apartment.

"I'm in the process of moving to a house," Ganon replies.

Mortgage brokers, casino managers and Paris Hilton aren't the only ones curious about such information. Ventura is a kennel assistant at the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' No-Kill Animal Sanctuary. Ganon is the massage teacher trying to adopt Jack, an American bulldog mix.

"They will not let you take him home unless it's directly to a house," Ventura insists, the volume of her voice raised to compensate for barking in the kennels all around them.

At 65 pounds, Jack is already big for 11 months. But he might get much bigger, Ventura says, because some Great Dane ancestry is suspected.

"I just want to see him," Ganon pleads. "Can you take him out and let me see him?"

The Nevada SPCA runs the valley's only animal shelter that does not use euthanasia to create more space. Placing animals in the best possible homes is the only tool in its arsenal to combat overcrowding.

If Jack leaves one of the shelter's 104 dog kennels, he will be immediately replaced by one of the more than 200 animals the organization is asked to help each day. (The Nevada SPCA also boards 300 cats and 75 random species including pot-bellied pigs, ducks and rabbits.)

"We're not trying to make it an inquisition with people like Natalie," says Doug Duke, Nevada SPCA executive director, "but we need to figure out if it's really going to work. If she's really committed, it will. But it can't be a quick impulse adoption. That won't work.

"We don't let them fly out the door."

Nearly 44 percent of the 56,559 animals impounded by the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson and Boulder City last year -- 24,722 -- were destroyed, according to the Las Vegas Valley Humane Society.

"Here, we believe that animals are members of the family, that we don't have a right to kill them," Duke says.

However, Duke adds that in his four-plus years at the Nevada SPCA, animals have been euthanized for terminal illnesses or injuries. He has had to put two down because of personality issues.

"One was a wolf mix who was too vicious," he says. "The other had brain damage from distemper as a puppy. He couldn't be trusted.

"I had to make two very hard decisions."

The Nevada SPCA shelter began in a small section of the Clark County pound at 4800 W. Dewey Drive. Last summer, when the pound shifted operations to Lied Animal Shelter, the Nevada SPCA expanded to occupy half the building. (The other half is occupied by the private Dewey Animal Hospital.)

The barking is just as loud and incessant, but longtime residents who enter the Nevada SPCA's facility notice a big difference, besides the giant NO KILL banner: It looks like a pet hotel. All dogs get blankets and chew toys. And all felines have free roam of a wing that includes themed rooms such as a pink-walled Cat House bordello, which features a cast-iron bed and stripper pole.

"He's a great dog, you can tell," Ganon says after successfully negotiating 10 minutes alone with Jack on a private patio. (She told Ventura she's moving to a house in two weeks, and promises to send proof.)

According to the bio sheet affixed to each kennel, Jack was found wandering the streets by a man who tried finding his owner for two months, but could no longer keep him in his small house. He's crate-trained and housebroken, and whines to indicate his desire to be walked.

Like all Nevada SPCA dogs, Jack is fixed, vaccinated and microchipped. His cost is an about-average $100.

"I'm a big dog person," Ganon says. "I can't do small dogs."

Growing up, Ganon says, she had two Labrador retrievers and a Dalmatian.

"I also had a Lhasa apso," she adds, "but that was my mom's."

A half-hour ago, Ganon was hot on Octavio, a male Heinz 57 (Nevada SPCA-speak for mutt) rescued from death row at another shelter. But as soon as she saw Jack, she knew he was the one.

"I could see it in his eyes," Ganon says.

Ganon's decision will not result in Octavio's death, as it might have at the Lied Animal Shelter in Las Vegas, the Henderson Animal Shelter or the Boulder City Animal Shelter. The biggest danger Nevada SPCA No-Kill residents face is getting fat.

You might think the shelter would not generate the same demand as a shelter that euthanizes. However, on this weekday afternoon, the Nevada SPCA is perpetually packed with potential adopters. About half make serious inquiries.

"Obviously, the beauty of going to Lied is that you do save them off of death row," Amy Farnsworth says as she waits for the paperwork to adopt a midsize Heinz 57 named Nicolette. "But I'm pretty much doing the same thing. I'm making room for the next dog who is going to be safe from being on death row somewhere else."

In addition, according to Duke, the lack of pressure to play God helps adopters make better decisions.

"People think, 'How can I decide who's gonna live and who's gonna die?' " he asks. "So instead of making a plan that's gonna fit with their family, they make a choice based on which dog breaks their heart the most.

"What if that dog is not the best choice for their family?"

If animals ever need to come back to the Nevada SPCA, Duke says he finds the room.

"We stick with them," he says. "That's the beauty of a rescue. Once they come in, they're safe for good."

Most days, Duke says, none get returned.

"Some days, there will be one or two," he notes.

If no official space is available, they're kept in hallway cages until a vacancy opens up. But the wait is never long, Duke says, since about 275 animals get adopted each month.

"We would never consider euthanasia of a healthy, friendly animal or an animal who we can make healthy and friendly through any reasonable measure," he says.

Weeks, sometimes months, are spent training and nursing some animals before offering them for adoption.

Duke, who has a law background, served for seven years as the gift and estate-planning director for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. The 39-year-old -- who moved to Las Vegas in 2001 -- also served as an adoption director for Lied in 2002.

"I hated it," he says. "There was too much killing, so I left. But I'm not saying that the pounds are all bad and you shouldn't go to them. You should.

"This is just a different way."

The Nevada SPCA is not the only local animal organization sharing Duke's philosophy. Several groups -- such as the Humane Society, Adopt a Rescue Pet and Heaven Can Wait -- have volunteers who rescue stray animals in the valley, keeping them in their own homes until public adoption events can be scheduled.

The Nevada SPCA is the only group with a physical facility in the valley. It now houses 500 animals, up from 300 last year. Its $750,000 annual budget is gathered entirely by private donations.

"And we'll never be empty," Duke says, a statement that resonates as both fortunate and unfortunate.

Two weeks later, Ganon has yet to move into that house and is now considering a move to South Carolina, possibly to an apartment. But the NSPCA let her have Jack anyway.

"I trust her," Duke says. "I can tell she's always going to do what's best for him."

Ganon has given Jack the surname Daniels, she says, "because he's the color of whiskey," and she's considering obedience class because of issues with humping and chewing.

"A few times, he's chewed the Yellow Pages down to 'Q' and made my apartment look like a New Year's party with confetti," she says. "But I love him. He's a great animal.

"I'm just really surprised that somebody didn't see that about him."