Second Chance Animal Services Aims to Help 45,000 Pets in 2022

EAST BROOKFIELD — The past two years have been hard on everyone, including pets. Day after day, more and more pets began to fall behind on basic vaccines and routine care as COVID-19 made it challenging for pets to be seen by their veterinarian. Second Chance Animal Services is rolling out plans to help a record-breaking 45,000 pets this year to help get pets up to date.

COVID all but sidelined local pet-vaccine clinics in 2020 and 2021. Second Chance CEO Sheryl Blancato noted that “we usually have a full schedule of towns to visit each spring, vaccinating hundreds of pets at a time. We were able to hold a few last year, but many pets are falling behind on critical vaccines that protect them from rabies or parvo. We do have weekly vaccine clinics in our hospitals, but it’s imperative to bring vaccine clinics directly to communities for those who can’t easily get to us.”

Second Chance is working to set up a full schedule of town vaccine clinics and will be announcing dates and locations soon.

Second Chance is also looking to its newest Community Veterinary Hospital in Southbridge to help get more pets seen this year. Blancato says the new location is currently open three days a week and will be expanding to five as additional veterinary staff come on board. “Like all businesses, we’ve faced staffing shortages, but we are excited to welcome some new recruits.”