President’s Message:
The Animals and All of Us Who Care About Them Have Lost a Champion – Dr. Holly Cheever
The animals and all of us who care about them have lost a champion with the passing of Dr. Holly Cheever. In addition to all her other activism, she was always there to work with NYSHA on any endeavor we were involved in to promote the welfare of animals.
Though I worked on numerous cruelty cases with Holly, my main interaction with her in the NYSHA sphere, were the many workshops NYSHA conducted across the state to instruct police, humane investigators, and others on how to investigate animal cruelty. The workshops ranged from Allegany County in the western part of the state, to Clinton County in the north, to Suffolk County on Long Island, and Holly always was there as a key speaker to provide her expert instruction to the attendees about how to best address and assess a cruelty case from a veterinary perspective.
Because of the wide-ranging locations, I arranged overnight stays for the other speakers that included some lively evening dinners. Holly, however, did not chose that option, as she had numerous animals to tend to in the mornings at her farm, especially her beloved Blossom and Bridgett, two beautiful brown-eyed cows she had raised since bottle-feeding them as baby calves.
So while the rest of us were having a nice breakfast after a night’s rest, Holly was driving for many hours and many hundreds of miles to be our post-lunch speaker. Remarkably, she arrived full of vigor and ready to go.
Yet, you first need to get the people to assemble and quiet down, and often while I was making a feeble attempt at that, waving my arms and saying, “Can I have your attention?” Holly took over, as she had her own unique method to get their attention. She put her fingers to her lips, blew, and let out the most ear-piercing whistle you can imagine. People stopped in their tracks stunned by the mighty blast this little lady could deliver. Thus, the afternoon session began.
As many of us know, the post-lunch speaking spot is not an easy one, but no one was seen nodding off in a reverie when Holly presented. She had a style all her own. To demonstrate how an investigator might recognize a dog with a mange problem, she would hunch over and march forward one–two–three-four, backward one-two-three-four several times and ask the attendees to imagine she was a dog scratching its back on the top of the opening of the dog house to relieve the horrid itching caused by mange and that resulted in a back rubbed red raw. It brought the point home vividly and I am sure none of the attendees ever forgot it.
Holly was a born teacher, and that coupled with her passionate dedication to use her voice for animals, anytime, anyplace, and in any way, made her an esteemed and cherished advocate who can never be replaced. Her legacy will be all the young veterinarians she inspired with her talks at veterinary conferences, the police officers she motivated to investigate animal crimes, and the thousands of people she moved emotionally–just by being Holly– to do more to better the lives of animals. She will not be forgotten. Ever.
Be kind to animals,
Patricia Valusek
New York State Humane Association Humane Review, Vol.XLV, Spring 2025.