Helen Lovblad had a crazy idea when she walked into the Humane Society for Tacoma and Pierce County one Thursday in 1987.
The Humane Society was euthanizing 20,000 of the 30,000 homeless animals brought to it each year. Lovblad thought she could stop the killing. Now, because of the gift she made at the time of her death, she just might pull it off.
When Lovblad arrived here, she was newly widowed and had moved to be near her two sisters in north Tacoma. She’d volunteered for a Humane Society in California, and she was ready to get back to it.
Joyce Messer, the volunteer in charge of mailers, showed her around.
“We spent the next 20 years together on Thursdays,” Messer, now 82, said of their friendship.
They stuffed envelopes, and Lovblad got to work on her plan.
“She was passionate about the need for affordable pet spaying and neutering and believed that helping low-income pet owners alter their pets was the key to ending pet overpopulation,” Humane Society spokeswoman Marguerite Richmond said.
The board had a plot to enlist veterinarians to do cut-rate surgeries on the pets of low-income people. They called it the Cinderella Program.
Lovblad volunteered to persuade the vets.
“She and another volunteer went to all the veterinarians in Pierce County to get them to sign up,” Messer said. “It took nearly two years.”
The numbers of euthanized pets started dropping. It has kept falling with each of the new initiatives for which Lovblad and hundreds of others volunteered.
“She was active in many areas, and came to be viewed as one of the staff,” Richmond said.
Lovblad also came to be known as a woman who put her money where her heart was. If a person could not afford even a low-cost pet sterilization, she could fix that. If there was a critter so matted and sorry it had no curb appeal, she could see the pet underneath.
Such was the case with Millie, a poodle-ish abandoned pup. Lovblad washed her, fluffed her, took her home, and the two grew old together.
There are lovely people like her all through the county, Humane Society Executive Director Kathleen Olson said.
There are the volunteers who work at least six hours a month. There are the Dog-A-Thon participants who turn giving into a party. There’s the man who’s allergic to cats, but every Christmas asks permission to take photos of the kitties and leaves a check for $6,000 on the counter.
And there are gifts that come with death.
A widower came in recently with two cats, Olson said. His wife, who kept them in a separate area of the house, had died.
“He was so violently allergic, he couldn’t keep them,” Olson said.
Staff assured him that at this time of year, all adoptable cats find homes. Still, he grieved as he wrote the check for the surrender fee: $57 for the first cat, $47 for the second.
Before he left, he wrote another check, for $1,000.
Because of gifts like those, the society has not euthanized an adoptable dog since 2007. It has expanded its low-cost spay and neuter programs. It transports pets to other no-kill shelters that find homes. It has partnerships with Petco and PetSmart, which sell only shelter cats.
Because of Lovblad’s last gift, this may be the year it can stop euthanizing cats.
Before she died Oct. 23 at 91, she reminded her sisters she had $50,000, and plans for it.
“Well, she was a pet lover. She wanted all animals to be taken care of and have nice homes,” said sister Blanche Kennedy. “She has always had this money that she wanted to go to the Humane Society. When she passed away, we said, ‘That’s got to be paid. That’s her last hooray.’”
She may get her goal this year.
Last year, the Humane Society euthanized 964 cats – a manageable number to try to turn to zero.
“If we can place three more cats a day, we can reach that,” Olson said. “That would take devoting one staff person to make sure the stores have pets.”
It would take about $50,000 a year.
Helen Lovblad’s last gift brings her crazy idea from 1987 so close, she could pat its furry little head.
Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/street
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