About Us

Second Chance Animal Center, established in 1959 as the Bennington County Humane Society, is a private, limited-admission, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that serves the needs of homeless animals as well as the needs of pet owners in our community. Our service area includes: all towns in Bennington County, Vermont; the towns of Cambridge, Salem, Shushan, and White Creek in Washington County, New York; Eagle Bridge in Rensselaer County, New York; and North Adams and Williamstown in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Residents in these areas can participant in any of our community programs.

Mission

Second Chance Animal Center is dedicated to providing compassionate shelter and adoption services for the animals in our care, improving the lives of companion animals in the communities that we serve via spay/neuter assistance, humane education, advocacy, and humane investigative advice and assistance to law enforcement agencies. (Approved March 4, 2015)

History

Originally incorporated as the Bennington County Humane Society, we changed our business name to Second Chance Animal Center in 2000 to better reflect our shelter philosophy, scope of services, and expanded service area beyond Bennington County. We purchased our first shelter site in 1961 (Shaftsbury, VT), then designed and built a new state-of-the-art facility in Arlington (VT) in 2018.