DOTTY 2024 Awardee Tiffany Lacey: ‘Working at Animal Haven isn’t a job. It’s a lifestyle’
For twenty years, Tiffany Lacey has dedicated her career to Animal Haven, a no-kill shelter in Tribeca favored by New York City celebrities, and dedicated to providing care to every animal that comes through its doors.
| 13 Mar 2024 | 01:52
Growing up, Tiffany Lacey’s favorite game was to play was “vet office,” pretending to heal injured pets. Now, she’s running Animal Haven, a no-kill shelter in Tribeca housing and rehabilitating up to 100 animals at a time. Photo provided.
Animal Haven President Tiffany Lacey first touched down in New York City from Houston, Texas in 1993, ready to embark on a career in the media industry. She had secured a coveted gig to work as an NBC page, which soon led to various roles in the entertainment industry.
“But when my family dog Schatzie passed away, the sadness I felt pushed me to follow a different career path,” she said. “I had always loved animals and wanted to dedicate my life to their care.”
Nearly 30 years old at the time, Lacey thought that veterinary school was out of the question. She decided to quit her talent agency job and get her Masters in Public Administration, and started working for nonprofits.
Then in 2003, a decade after she first arrived in New York, Lacey “landed a job at a small group in Queens, N.Y. called Animal Haven. The rest is history.”
Freefalling
As Animal Haven grew, so did Lacey’s role with the nonprofit animal shelter. Twenty years later, she’s the organization’s president and executive director.
No two days are the same. Animal Haven handles both the rescue and rehabilitation of abandoned animals, which ranges from grooming to challenging physical and behavioral therapy. The shelter will harbor an animal for as long as it takes to get it into a new forever home, housing approximately 100 cats and dogs at full capacity, and averaging about 60 adoptions each month.
“It’s really just a free fall every week,” said Lacey. But the reward greatly outweighs the stress of running a busy shelter with a “small, but mighty” team of approximately 20 employees.
“It’s a gift to have my job. I might not be a millionaire, but I really don’t care. It’s worth every minute,” said Lacey. “Working at Animal Haven isn’t a job. It’s a lifestyle.”
Star-studded collars
While she is no longer in the entertainment industry, Lacey still finds herself working alongside the stars. Plenty of New York-based celebrities have utilized Animal Haven to procure their canine and feline companions: Edie Falco, Jon Stewart, Padma Lakshmi, John Slattery and Martha Plimpton, to name a few.
It’s hard for Lacey to pin down a best day on the job. She adopted her own pups, Angus and Bernadette, from Animal Haven.
Our Town interviewed Lacey the same day John Stewart tearfully announced on “The Daily Show” that Dipper, his brindle, three-legged pitbull mix from Animal Haven, had passed.
Looking back, Lacey said “the moment I put Dipper in John Stewart’s lap nearly eleven years ago” was a career highlight.
Within a week of Stewart’s segment, moved viewers poured over $60,000 in donations to the shelter.
Helping animals like Dipper, who wound up at Animal Haven after being hit by a car in Brooklyn, is what keeps Lacey motivated.
“Inspiration comes easy when day in and day out you see animals suffer,” she said. “There just isn’t enough money or time to save them all so it pushes you to keep moving.”