“There are vulnerable dogs who have never been on a walk, never been inside a home, never been shown any love or taught how to be a dog,” says Scott Deluchi, president of SPCA Monterey County. “We get these poor dogs coming in almost every week.”

It’s for these struggling dogs that the Sally Lucas TLC was built as part of the expansion project of the SPCA facility off the Salinas-Monterey Highway that began a year ago.

“These dogs need special care and attention from our trained behavior teams before they can be put into a new home,” Deluchi said.

For more than 100 years, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) has served as the area’s main animal welfare organization. Their services range from spaying and neutering, sheltering and training all sorts of animals until they are fit for adoption and rescuing animals in times of disasters at no cost to the owners.

However, Deluchi felt they needed a new space and some renovations to meet new needs that have come up in recent years.

The new Sally Lucas TLC center features a dog training pavilion, consultation rooms, offices and heated kennels that allow the staff to conduct special classes on separation anxiety, fearfulness, reactivity and more. In addition, the new facility houses the Humane Investigations team that responds to hundreds of animal cruelty and neglect reports every year.

“We spent a long time actively observing and listening to how the specialists were interacting with the traumatized animals, understand what that experience would be like for the animals and how not to trigger them by visual or auditory stimuli,” said David Peartree, principal at Peartree+Belli Architects, an architecture firm based in Salinas, which designed the new facilities.Through such observation, the Peartree architects succeeded in integrating the office functions within those kenneling spaces so that there is always visibility from a staff member to the kennels and to the play areas for the dogs. Peartree also believes that they were able to work within the context of the existing design to produce new construction that appears to have belonged there all along.

Across from the TLC building is the newly renovated Claire Jacobson Learning Center, which now includes a new open deck, overlooking the scenery of the surrounding hills and pastures. Remodeled with bird-safe glass, the transformed and expanded space will now host children’s educational Summer Animal Camps and serve as a hub for SPCA volunteers. Deluchi emphasizes that a core mission for SPCA is educating and reaching the young in the community as it is key in improving animal lives.

The Learning Center was renovated on a unique topography, where there was a lack of land that could be developed due to slopes, sensitive habitats and viewshed restrictions. “Given the constraints, it was a challenge to renovate and build on the existing space, while also ensuring that the constructions did not impact the SPCA operations,” says Blach Vice President Kevin McIntosh, “It was really the thoughtfulness and early collaboration with SPCA that allowed us to perform our functions while still maintaining their operations at necessary capacity throughout the course of the construction.”

This project was SPCA’s second time working with Blach and first time working with PBA.

“Between the builders and the architect, it was truly a dream team for us,” said Deluchi. “We wanted to work with a local firm that really listened to our needs, which Peartree delivered perfectly. And Blach was our familiar but solid partner, doing a spectacular job as they did previously in turning our dream campus into a reality.”

“We had a record-setting year for the number of spay-neuter surgeries performed at our clinic,” Deluchi said, “and the new expansions will help us increase the scope of our services and cater to those community animals that need our help the most.”