If you had to narrow it down, you could say Jen and Chase's community mission is threefold.
First, they raise funds for the PSPCA, specifically for the organization's Humane Law Enforcement department, a/k/a "Animal Cops," and the animals they rescue. Second, they teach kids to be kind to animals. Third, most general: They speak up for dogs, which can't speak for themselves.
Mostly, they speak up for pit bulls, or, more correctly, pit bulls and pit-bull mixes. Jen Utley calls them "my pits."
Puppy love
On a recent sweltering Wednesday, the PSPCA is packed. The clinic is running its weekly special: low-cost vaccines. Pet owners file in with cat carriers, unhappily leashed mutts, a laundry basket of fluffy cotton-ball puppies, and dozens more Fidos and felines. A staffer tells a woman seeking shots for her pit-mix puppy that she'll first have to see the doctor for the dog's swollen-shut left eye. A ponytailed man runs in with a listless gray pit in his arms and tells another PSPCA worker, "She just stopped moving."
It's tense. It's hot. It's anything but glam.
Then there's Mrs. Chase Utley, cucumber-cool in a chic, black romper, oversized sunglasses and a designer bagful of snacks, for which she apologizes. (Jen and Chase are expecting their first child this fall, and, well, she's a bit hungrier than usual.) Jen steps naturally into the melee.
Past the reception area, she stops at a stack of cat cages to reach her fingers in for a few quick pets. In a crowded hallway, she greets the workers hustling by, by name. Ducking into the shelter hospital, she spots a badly battered cat with three legs. "Is this the one that got mauled by the German shepherd?" she asked. It is.
