Lloyd Gluck has been practicing law for 66 years and helping Animal Friends for 50.

	Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette
	Lloyd Gluck, 93, wears a hard hat as he visits the construction site for the new Animal Friends shelter, named the Caryl Gates Gluck Resource Center in honor of his late wife.

For most of his life, Gluck has donated his legal skills and expertise while serving many years on the shelter's advisory board and, for the past four years, as a member of the board of directors. He played a key role in building the agency's first shelter in the mid-1960s.

Now Gluck and his wife, Virginia, are donating $2.3 million toward construction of a $7.35 million shelter and resource center on Camp Horne Road in Ohio Township. A total of $5 million has been donated and a capital fund-raising campaign is continuing.

Construction of the 30,000-square-foot building started in early December and should be finished by the end of the year.

The official name will be the Caryl Gates Gluck Resource Center at Animal Friends, in honor of Gluck's first wife.

"Virginia is just as concerned as I am" about meeting the needs of animals, said Gluck, who lives in Gateway Towers, Downtown. "She is an equal partner in everything I do. Virginia will do everything she can to see that the work of Animal Friends continues."

Gluck, 92, said he and Caryl were married "only 24 years" when she died of cancer, "but it was an unbelievable 24 years."

He married Virginia in 1967. She supports the decision to name the Animal Friends facility after a woman she loved, too, for Caryl Gates Gluck was her sister.

Gluck's love of animals dates to his childhood in East Liberty and the special present he received for his fifth birthday, a collie named Dorothy. She was followed by a Boston terrier named Babe, a Chihuahua named Patsy and a dachshund named Hilda.

For Gluck, it wasn't enough to love the dogs he owned. He reached out to dogs and animals that needed homes, quietly donating money and free legal advice to Animal Friends, starting in 1955. He chose that group because of its "no-kill" philosophy.

Animal Friends was founded in 1943 to take in the pets of soldiers going off to fight in World War II. At that time, there was no shelter, so volunteers cared for animals in their homes.

When the war ended, the need to find homes for animals continued. Volunteers still took animals into their own homes until permanent homes could be found.

In the mid-1960s, Gluck had a client who wanted to make a generous bequest, and he asked Gluck to pick the recipient.

Gluck told Animal Friends, "I had something for them, but I did not give them a figure. They asked if the client could give $100 to meet expenses. I told them I could advance that" with more to come later.

They were astounded when the client donated $100,000, which enabled construction of a shelter.

Lloyd and Caryl Gluck contributed to that shelter, too. A plaque in the puppy room stated that it was "dedicated in honor of Hilda Gluck," their dachshund. A picture of that plaque is one of many on the walls of Gluck's office in the Frick Building, Downtown, where he continues to practice law.

"This organization has a track record in a field I admire," Gluck said, explaining his long support of Animal Friends. "I've never seen a group that is so involved and so concerned as this board and the volunteers."

While volunteers now walk dogs on sidewalks outside the cramped shelter on Penn Avenue in the Strip District, the new facility will have a mile of walking trails.

He said he and his wife supported the concept of a facility that will be more than a shelter. It will include a research library that is open to the public, the ability to do more low-cost spay and neuter surgeries and increased opportunities for volunteers and for educational events at the shelter.

"Animal Friends has a vision," Gluck said, "but in a practical way. I hope this will be a first step in the city becoming no-kill."

The shelter and resource center will more than double the current shelter in the Strip District, which has 156 cages and about 12,000 square feet. The Carly Gates Gluck center will have room for 250 animals.

"But it's not just about cage space," said Kathleen Beaver, Animal Friends development director and assistant executive director. "No matter how many cages we have, they will be filled immediately," so the thrust includes education and public programs to stem the flood of unwanted animals.

Four of the cages will be endowed in the memory of four dogs whose names will be on the cages -- Dorothy, Babe, Patsy and Hilda, Gluck's childhood dogs.

Tributes to pets and other loved ones can be made with smaller donations. About 500 people have bought bricks for $250 or $500. The bricks, which will pave the outdoor patio, can be engraved with three to six lines of text.

Other Animal Friends fund-raisers for the facility include a Bark and Brew party at Penn Brewery, North Side, on Friday and the second annual Tails on the Back Nine outing at the Hickory Heights Golf Club in Bridgeville on June 24.

For further information, call Animal Friends at 412-566-2103.