Operating on donations and grants, the Dankin Animal Shelter has been providing adoption, foster care, sterilizations and other service for dogs, cats, rabbits, geese, and exotic birds among other animals since opening as the Greenfield Area Animal Shelter in 1968.
SPRINGFIELD — “One-Eyed Jackie” was one sick cat.
Wheezing and dehydrated, with lungworm, dental disease and feline AIDS, the abandoned house pet was half-dead when a volunteer for Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society spotted her last fall.
Several months and surgeries later, the cat – minus an eye removed due to infection – is alive and prowling her new apartment in Westfield.
“She basically runs the house,” said Diane Lemanis, who adopted the cat in January from Dakin. On the subject of her new housemate, Lemanis insists that she, not the cat, is the lucky one.
“Getting her was one of the best things I’ve ever done,” she said.
One-Eyed Jackie is just one of thousands of animals helped by Dakin since arriving in Hampden County in 2009, filling a void left by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal’s hospital and adoption center.
Operating on donations and grants, the animal charity has been providing adoption, foster care, sterilizations and other service for dogs, cats, rabbits, geese, and exotic birds among other animals since opening as the Greenfield Area Animal Shelter in 1968.
After merging with Everett-based Dakin Animal Shelter and the Pioneer Valley Humane Society in 2006, the agency arrived in Greater Springfield with an agenda that went beyond caring for sick, stray or injured animals.
With innovative tactics and a flair for marketing, the organization has attacked the causes of animal abandonment and homelessness, with a particular emphasis on spaying and neutering.
Since 2009, the spay/neuter clinic in Springfield has been busy sterilizing about 12,000 animals each year. In September, an eight-month old pit bull mix named Maverick from Southwick had the distinction of becoming the 30,000th spay/neuter customer.
But cats, not dogs, are the real challenge for Dakin and other humane organizations.
The reason is biology: an unspayed female can give birth to two or three litters a year, for about 10 years – or more than 100 kittens.
At Dakin, 67 percent of incoming animals were cats last year, down from 72 percent over the previous two years.
As animal advocates know, too many kittens is a formula for suffering and death – on the streets for feral cats, or in shelters where cats that can’t be adopted often get euthanized.
Using a $199,400 grant from Petsmart Charities, Dakin identified 12 kitten-producing zip codes in Pioneer Valley communities and targeted them for a birth-reduction blitz last summer.
Low-income pet owners in Greenfield, Orange, Turners Falls, Belchertown, South Hadley, Ware, Holyoke, Chicopee and three Springfield neighborhoods were urged to round up their cats and bring them in for free neuter/spaying surgery - a service that usually costs $50 per cat.
The zip code initiative not only paid off in the designated areas, but it helped accomplish an overall drop of 36 percent of kittens coming into Dakin from across the Pioneer Valley.
“We’ve reached the tipping point,” said Leslie A. Harris, Dakin’s executive director.
Behind the large statistical drop were dozens of small dramas, including one involving a low-income Greenfield family that took in four stray kittens, naming them Ginger, Jumper, Reeses and Sophie Ann.
"The family soon discovered the new arrivals were all sisters - and, assuming nature ran its course, there could be 30 more mouths to feed within a year.
The family couldn’t afford to pay (the spaying costs of $50 each), but they didn’t want to give up the kittens either,” Harris explained.
Thanks to the Petsmart funding, the kittens were spayed and vaccinated without costing their owners a penny.
“It worked out well for everyone,” Harris added.
The agency has also expanded foster care placements for lost or abandoned animals. Last year, a network of Dakin volunteers took in more than 1,200 cats, dogs and other animals until permanent homes could be found.
To help low-income families, pet food is also delivered to area survival centers and Meals on Wheels programs to keep animals with their families.
The combined approach has paid off for pets, their owners and the agencies that care for them, said Pamela L. Peebles, executive director at the Thomas J. O’Connor Animal Control and Adoption Center.
“Dakin has been a really good neighbor; we work with them individual situations and on larger issues,” she said.
“Dakin has been a godsend for us,” said Debra L. LaBruzzo, coordinator for the Homeless Cat Project in Springfield.
With a budget of $3 million and 16 employees, the agency receives no government funding and relies on public support to survive.
Which explains, in part, its frisky marketing style.
Last November, Dakin held a Black Friday cat adoption sale, with vaccinations, neutering, health screening, a microchip, jewel-tone collar, ID tag and a starter bag of food for $5 – or $90 off the standard rate.
By noon, the line was across the parking lot and down the street. By the end of the day, 136 adult cats and 14 kittens went home with new families on Friday night.