LOCKPORT — Finally, Eastern Niagara Animal Welfare Alliance has a show place for the stray dogs and cats in its care.

It’s still looking for volunteers, and donations, to support its mission: rescue and rehabilitation of abused and abandoned pets.

The alliance will open a pet adoption center and thrift store at 5860 S. Transit Road, once the home of Beakman Small Animal Hospital, next month, according to ENAWA Executive Director Bobbie Mael. The center will also serve as shelter for strays that haven’t been placed in foster or permanent homes yet.

The Alliance’s search for pet digs has been in progress for over a year. While Mael owns land in Wrights Corners, and got the Town of Lockport’s OK to build a shelter there, she didn’t have the $60,000 it would cost to get a shelter going from scratch.

Recently, commercial real estate developer Glen Miller offered Mael a deal: rent part of the Beakman space and he’d “donate” the rest for good of the animals.

“It’s a good spot for (a shelter). We haven’t had anybody in a lot of the building and Bobbie’s cause seems worthwhile,” MIller said.

The Alliance’s primary causes are to shelter the pets of fleeing domestic violence victims; line up low-cost spay/neuter services for pets of low-income residents; and secure foster care and permanent homes for abused and abandoned dogs and cats. Along the way it looks for opportunities to educate the community about humane animal care.

The thrift store will be operated to raise money for those projects.

Currently, 73 animals are in ENAWA-arranged foster homes. The intake numbers are rising, a reflection on the floundering local economy and the degree to which animals are not properly cared for here, Mael said.

As a rescue outfit, ENAWA focuses first on saving dogs “marked for death” after they were abused or neglected so badly, conventional wisdom suggests they should be euthanized. “Mill” dogs are frequently so marked because they haven’t been socialized and don’t know how to live with humans, Mael said; these dogs are among the first the Alliance goes to bat for.

The Alliance also agrees to find new homes for cats and dogs being given up by human owners who’ve lost income, their jobs or housing. It’s a sad phenomenon that Mael said she’s seeing more of as the recession lingers.

The problem is, most shelters and foster homes in the volunteer rescue network are full, including ENAWA’s.

It’s a difficult line to deliver, but people trying to get the non-profit Alliance to take animals off their hands are expected to donate to it, “unless they’re destitute,” Mael said.

“The hardest part of what I do is having to say ‘no.’ The reality that people don’t want to face is, none of this is free — and it’s not ‘someone else’s’ problem. Some people don’t like hearing that, and they try to manipulate us: they’ll say ‘if you don’t take (the animal), I’ll take it to the SPCA and they’ll kill it.’ Or they threaten to just leave the animal behind. ... We do have a real problem in Niagara County.”

The Alliance recently received a $30,000 grant from the Grigg-Lewis Foundation to help get its shelter up and running. Gradually, the whole thing is coming together, with donations by businesses including Miller Construction, Ulrich Sign Co. and Rosewood Signs of Tonawanda, which dressed up the donated school bus that ENAWA is using in part as a mobile adoption center. Mael said she was blessed a while back to make the acquaintance of a like-minded rescuer in San Juan, Puerto Rico, who’s actually going to come to Lockport next month to help open the shelter.

Caribbean Canines director Jeannie Brown, formerly of Niagara Falls, is working with the Alliance to get several abused dogs

 placed with families in western New York. She pays the fares for the dogs because here, she can send a family member to check up on the dogs after they’re placed, she said. It’s part of progressive animal care, a philosophy she and Mael share — and that’s why she’s making the trip, she said. She’s eager to wield a carpet cutter or whatever other tool is required to make comfortable shelter for the animals — and a place that supports responsible animal stewardship.

“Domestic violence outreach for (pets)? I’ve never heard of this before. ... I’m so impressed with the things Bobbie has done so far,” Brown said. “I’m self-taught in a lot of (construction) work, so I told her, don’t spend any money on contractors, save it for the animals. I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”

The Alliance shelter has enough room for 22 dogs and about 100 cats, but at the outset it’s being regarded primarily as a pet adoption show place, Mael said.

A few at a time, animals in foster care will be brought to the center to be looked over by prospective owners. If someone likes what they see, they’ll have to make an appointment to meet the animal up close at a foster home. The reason is to see if pet and person are “a match,” Mael said. “The reason why so many animals are surrendered is they’re not matches.”

The Alliance’s adoption fee, for cat or dog, is $100; the animals have been “vetted” for both medical and behavioral issues that would make them difficult adoptees, Mael said, and they’re dewormed, vaccinated, sterilized and microchipped.

As the shelter opens, the Alliance is looking for volunteers to man it, foster families for incoming animals, and donations of better household goods to stock its thrift shop. To assist, call Mael at 478-9406.