Her dad trained dogs for the Coast Guard during World War II.
Candace Lash at the Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society with her dog Woodrow I. Lash, "Woody."
Editor's note: In conjunction with International Women's Day on March 8, The Republican is featuring more than a dozen area women and their accomplishments in profiles during March, which is also Women's History Month. Many of the profiles will appear in Pioneer Valley Life and on MassLive.Com on March 2.
Candace Lash’s love of animals stems all the way back to what she learned during her childhood from her father about caring for and respecting them.
Lash, 59, currently director of community and media relations at the Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society, fondly remembers her late father, Ronald Hill, talking about the German shepherds he trained for the Coast Guard during World War II.
“I heard a lot from him growing up that there were two schools of thought about training dogs, one with love or the other with fear. He said they could have court marshaled him before he would ever mistreat an animal to get them to do what he wanted,” she said. “He was always very emotional about it.”
His passion and that of her late mother, Helen Hill, for animals has resonated with Lash throughout her career, which has been a mix of being the face of animal welfare in the area in newspapers and on air, and teaching children at local schools.
At age 5, Lash wanted to be a flight attendant after having taken her first plane trip. But once she graduated from North Adams State College with degrees in sociology and elementary education, she decided to give teaching a shot.
Her first gig was teaching all subjects in the second and sixth grades at Our Lady of Sacred Heart School in Springfield in the mid- to late-1970s.
After six years, she left teaching to work at MassMutual from 1982 to 1996 in a variety of capacities, including organizing recreational activities for employees and working in community relations.
It was during this time that she started volunteering at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) walking dogs.
She also served as a volunteer on an MSCPA advisory committee.
“The more I got involved, the more I decided this is what I wanted to do,” she said.
When she was asked to take a position at the MSPCA as a project coordinator, Lash initially said no because it was a lower paying job than the one at MassMutual.
But six months later the job was posted again and she went for it. She stayed for three years organizing special events such as fund-raising walks for animals as well as leading humane education workshops and overseeing the organization’s volunteer program.
In the mid-90s it was a different time for animal welfare and the MSPCA, which was taking in 11,000 animals a year and a “woefully small percentage of them made it out alive,” she said.
“There were a lot more animals coming in and not the financial resources available to help animals the way we do now.”
Those circumstances took their toll on Lash, she said.
“I loved the people and the animals but I started to deteriorate emotionally. It was very heartbreaking because animals were not surviving,” the East Springfield resident said.
Lash’s friend and then-colleague, Richard LeBlond, a former sergeant at the MSPCA in Springfield and now chief of Law Enforcement at MSPCA-Angell in Boston, encouraged her to take care of herself.
“I always told her as long as we gave it 100 percent it was all we could do,” LeBlond said.
“She’s really a great person. Her compassion for animals, well, I don’t think anyone else has more than she does.”
Lash said she listened to LeBlond’s “voice of reason” and left the MSPCA to teach at Holy Cross grammar school in Springfield from 1999 to 2004.
“I liked establishing a relationship with the kids and seeing them every day,” she said.
While still teaching in 2003, the MSPCA asked Lash if she would volunteer to take over the organization’s weekly segment that aired on WWLP-22TV, called “Pet Corner,” an opportunity to show and talk about an animal up for adoption.
Lash had done that previously when she worked at the MSPCA and was more than happy to do it on her own time.
“I knew it was a great way to get them adopted. I always say if I didn’t have an animal with me I probably wouldn’t be able to speak,” she said jokingly.
After leaving teaching she eventually began working at Dakin, the animal care and humane education facility on 171 Union St.
“I was concerned about coming back but knew I needed to stay out of the shelter to a greater degree than I had,” she said.
“I needed to trust everybody did what was best for an animal. Trust your colleagues and yourself.”
Her office at Dakin is filled with images of rabbits, cats and other animals, including Norman Rockwell’s “Boy in Veterinarian’s Office.”
She brings her 3-year-old Golden mix named Woody to the office every day, a dog she and her husband, James Lash, adopted through a Dakin program that transports dogs from overcrowded shelters in southern states to families in New England.
“I consider it an honor to work on behalf of animals and speak on their behalf,” she said. “How often can people say they’re living their dream.”
Related:
March 3 is pet health and safety day at Dakin. Learn Pet First Aid and CPR at a 11 a.m. workshop.
http://www.dpvhs.org/