When Alia Mahmud visited Westfield Annapolis Mall in February 2022, she didn’t go to buy clothes, or to watch a movie or to even meet up with her girlfriends. She was looking for rats.
A week earlier, Ms. Mahmud saw a post online about a pack of rodents at the SPCA of Anne Arundel County, whose shelter opened an outpost at the mall in September 2020. When she arrived at the new location and approached the rat enclosure, she saw Snoofles, Algernon and Ikit, 5-month-old sisters who perked up and pressed their pink noses through their crate to get a better look at Ms. Mahmud and her boyfriend.
“They kind of ran up to us and said hi,” said Ms. Mahmud, 32, a school therapist in Alexandria, Va. “They melted our hearts with how little, affectionate and outgoing they were from the beginning.”
But it wasn’t until a meet-and-greet days later when Ms. Mahmud finally decided to take them home, where Snoofles proceeded to run down her shirt.
“At that point, I was like, Well all right, I guess they’ve chosen,” Ms. Mahmud said.
Morgan McLoud, the marketing director at Westfield Annapolis, came up with the idea to lease retail spaces to animal shelters at a reduced rate in January 2020, after she saw dozens of people line up to pay $25 to visit a crowded cat cafe in Washington, D.C.
Within days, she reached out to Kelly Brown, president of the SPCA of Anne Arundel County, who suggested using one of the mall’s empty storefronts as an extension of the organization’s main shelter. The new outpost, Paws at the Mall, opened eight months later. Since then, Paws has seen the number of adoptions rise to 608 in 2021, from 131 in 2019, finding homes for hundreds of cats, guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters and even some hedgehogs and hermit crabs.
With all the furry encounters, Ms. McLoud, the marketing director, said that Westfield Annapolis Mall had experienced a 10 percent increase in foot traffic in Paws’ wing since they opened, which has translated into more people and spending in other stores.
“The evolution of malls is changing,” Ms. McLoud said. “I think everyone really realizes that. I think what makes us so unique and special is the fact that we are really adapting with this evolution.”
As for the newly adopted rats Snoofles, Algernon and Ikit, they now spend their days dunking in a minipool of frozen peas, snuggling in a blue plush hammock and running around Ms. Mahmud’s one-bedroom apartment. Ms. Mahmud, though, already knows she will return to the mall sometime soon.
“Sadly,” she said, “rats only live two to three years.”