Ground broke this week on a $480,000 expansion of the Pet Rescue Community Clinic — the largest capital project in our organization's history, and one funded entirely by donors.
When the doors open next spring, the clinic will have a second operating suite, a dedicated dental care room, and a recovery ward with twice the current bed count. Together they will let us roughly double our surgical capacity, from 1,900 spay and neuter procedures a year to somewhere north of 3,200.
Why surgical capacity is the bottleneck
Our waiting list for low-cost spay and neuter surgery currently runs eleven weeks. Eleven weeks is not an abstraction. In eleven weeks an unspayed cat can have a litter, and those kittens arrive at a shelter that is already full. Every week we shave off that list is a week of prevented litters.
Roughly a third of that list belongs to families driving in from Conroe, Humble, and the far side of The Woodlands. Doubling capacity here means shorter waits for the whole area, plus more voucher slots at our partner clinics.
The new dental suite addresses a quieter problem. Dental disease is the most common untreated condition we see in surrendered senior pets, and it is painful, expensive, and entirely fixable. Having a dedicated room means we can finally offer dental cleanings at community-clinic prices instead of referring families elsewhere.
People assume shelter medicine is about emergencies. It is mostly about arithmetic — how many surgeries can you do in a day, and how many animals never get born into homelessness because of it. — Dr. Sam Okafor, DVM
Staying open during construction
The clinic will remain open throughout the build. Construction is confined to the west wing, and our existing surgical suite and exam rooms are unaffected. Expect some noise on weekday mornings, a temporarily relocated entrance, and our sincere apologies about the parking lot.
Walk-in Saturday vaccine clinics continue on their normal schedule, 8 to 11am.