image description — Morty is one of 10 dogs whose adoption fees will be waived next week. The Berkshire Humane Society is participating in the statewide event to help 'long-termers' find forever homes.

Berkshire Humane Society Holding Fee Waived Event Next Week

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
05:24PM / Friday, April 18, 2025Print Story | Email Story

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Berkshire Humane Society is having a fee-waived adoption event for dogs one year and older.

This event is called "Big Dog Energy" and is happening in many shelters across Massachusetts. It runs from April 22 through April 27.

"There is still just an influx of adult dogs who are sitting in shelters," said Berkshire Humane Society's Executive Director John Perreault.

Last year, the Berkshire Humane Society participated in a week of fee-waived adoptions for the Mass-Saves promotion, also because of an influx of adult dogs staying in the shelter.

Perrault said it's still the case, unfortunately.

"They're not moving all across the state so we're right now really trying to promote all the great dogs that all the shelters have around the state," he said.

Perrault said there could be many reasons some dogs are not getting adopted right away.

"Some people have blamed it on people getting rid of their dogs coming out of COVID, some people believe it's the economy, you know, that it costs so much to take care of a dog and the cost of everything is going up," he said. "By hopefully fee waiving the adoption fee that may trigger some people to realize that you know, if that's a barrier or a hurdle and we can eliminate that to put a good dog in a good home, then it's certainly worth it."

Perrault said he is hoping this event is successful as some past ones haven't been.

"The fee-waived adoptions around the state have been very very successful. The first one we did I think we placed five dogs who were over 600 days of care when they were here, I cant remember the exact amount, and it was awesome because they were long-termers," he said. "Since then we've done about five or six of these along with everybody else and many other shelters around the state are finding huge success and we're not, I think we've gone through one or two where we may not have placed any during that fee waived week.

"So, we're hoping this one's going to be a successful one."

The shelter currently has 10 dogs available whose fees will be waived next week

Tags: adoption, Berkshire Humane Society, dogs,

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Healey Administration Visits Pittsfield to Talk Green Energy Siting

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
12:07PM / Monday, October 05, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass.— Massachusetts energy officials visited Pittsfield to talk about clean energy infrastructure siting as the state works to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

On Wednesday, Sept. 30, the Healey-Driscoll Administration hosted a listening session at the Berkshire Innovation Center. Representatives from Berkshire communities and organizations heard about solar arrays, battery storage, and more.

The 2024 clean energy bill aims for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. As part of it, municipalities must begin accepting single consolidated local permit applications for small clean energy projects this month.

"We have new regulations coming into place, and just want to make sure we are hearing from people because we know it's not always easy. We have a lot of commitments on clean energy and climate that are really important, and they help us on our energy affordability, but we know there's also often tension with our land preservation values," Deputy Climate Chief Aladdine Joroff said.

"We want to preserve rural character. We have to protect critical forests and ecosystems for habitat and water supply. We're thinking about how we balance those different goals."

She explained that large clean energy systems, in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, have public health benefits and are more affordable.

Since 2008, more than 200,000 solar arrays have been installed statewide, surpassing a 4,500 megawatt milestone. Roughly 98 percent of those installations are residential scale, sized between five and ten kilowatts, and solar is the second largest source of generation capacity in the state, as well as in New England.

Undersecretary of Energy Michael Judge explained that solar has shifted peaks into the evening by reducing demand in the middle of the day, largely contributing to the retirement of some fossil fuel generation facilities and lowering wholesale energy prices.

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