DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — DeKalb County commissioners have approved more than $1.18 million in yearly funding to expand free spay and neuter services and mobile veterinary clinics.
It’s another effort to ease the chronic overcrowding in the county’s animal shelter. The investment is included in an extension of the county’s contract with LifeLine Animal Project, which has operated the shelter since 2013.
“In many ways, spay-neuter has gotten to be cost prohibitive,” said Rebecca Guinn, founder and CEO of LifeLine. “Veterinary care, basic veterinary care, is getting very expensive, so the county is stepping up to provide a safety net.”
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Last year, LifeLine performed about 1,000 free spay and neuter surgeries. The new funding will expand its capacity to 6,000 free procedures a year, a sixfold increase.
To meet the higher demand, LifeLine will add Friday, Saturday and Sunday surgeries three weeks a month.
“It certainly raises the quality of life for pets in the community,” Guinn said. “I don’t know that we’re going to see an immediate impact with spay-neuter. This is a long-range plan.”
The shelter has experienced a 30% increase in animal intakes over the last two years, Guinn said.
“Really, there are so many economic challenges people are facing right now,” she said.
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Those challenges put a strain on pet owners who may not have realized the cost of caring for animals and have to surrender them at the shelter.
The contract approved by county commissioners also doubles mobile veterinary clinic visits in high-need areas, expands access to veterinary care for sick and injured pets, and adds new community engagement staff.
Those staff members will work in targeted neighborhoods to connect people with pet resources, provide transportation to appointments, and help them access pet care.
“I don’t know of any other local investment in spay and neuter that’s like this,” Guinn said.
Several states have launched free spay-neuter programs, but she said the scale of this investment is rare for a single county.
“This investment shows that DeKalb County really cares about its pets,” Guinn said. “And we believe pets are family.”
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