The clinic at the Bastrop County Animal Shelter was alive with activity Thursday even as final touches were being added to the brand new surgical suite.

The facility, which housed its first four-legged patient in December and is expected to be completed in February, is a needed addition to an operation that has carried out sterilization surgeries in cramped quarters for years. Now, with two wellness rooms, a dedicated surgical room and a few added staffers, the animal shelter made a major leap toward becoming a state-of-the-art shelter for a growing population.

“We’re operating more as a shelter now than as a pound,” said Animal Services Executive Director Ashley Hermans. “Pounds just exist to do the absolute minimum, whereas shelters are trying to do all that you can.”

The shelter and its contracted part-time veterinarian will now conduct about 20 spay and neutering operations every Monday and Thursday. Additionally, the shelter has forged a partnership with WAGS Hope and Healing — a Bastrop County-based animal rescue and outreach non-profit — that will fund one additional sterilization day per month.

Hermans and WAGS Executive Director Jennifer Carroll hope that the sterilization service can help put a major dent in the number of breeding stray animals in the county. As more animals become sterilized, shelter officials expect the breeding rates of feral animals to come under control. In 2017, the shelter estimated that stray animals composed about 61 percent of the animals the shelter housed. In the last two years, the total number of feral animals the shelter has taken in has dropped by 15 percent to around 3,800.

“That should continue to decrease with these programs going into the community,” Carroll said. “Intake should slowly decrease even as the population increases.”

In the last year, her organization has concentrated on the homes overrun with unsterilized animals. Recently WAGS brought in 15 puppies from a single Bastrop County home with several breeding female dogs. Carroll estimated that the home had generated 100 puppies in the last year that had gone to the Bastrop County shelter as well as to one in Giddings.

“Those are the faucets we need turned off,” Hermans said. “That’s just one house, and there are a lot more like that in the county.”

With the fresh facility and added staff — one vet and two assistants — the focus of the operation will center around sterilization and disease prevention. Animals that need rabies vaccinations, heartworm treatment, flea treatment or have a minor skin rash can be serviced in one of the facility’s new wellness rooms.

“This is not for sick animals. If your animals have parvo, distemper or a broken leg, that’s not what this (facility) is for, unfortunately,” Hermans said. “Sometimes a dog just has some ear mites — we can help with that. Sometimes a dog just has a minor ear infection — we can help with that. Sometimes infections get so major they need surgery — we can’t help with that.”

For now, sterilization services are strictly for the animals rescued by WAGS or those that wind up at the shelter. But Hermans is hoping that with a little more funding, the shelter can open up those services to the public.

“If we had the full support and resources from the county, we could actually increase our per day surgeries to about 35 per day rather than the 20 that we currently average,” Hermans said. “My goal is to one day be able to not only have our in-house surgeries covered but to be able to offer low cost and even no cost surgeries to Bastrop County residents.”

The $160,000 building was partly funded by an $80,000 donation from the estate of Mary Barina, a Smithville woman who requested that her money go toward animals following her death. Barina’s estate executor and nephew, Roy Pool, gifted the money to the county.

The facility was also funded through an insurance claim after a tornado destroyed a storage building belonging to the shelter several years ago. Bastrop County also budgeted enough funds in its 2017-18 budget to meet the $160,000 price tag. An additional $20,000 donation from Pet’s Mart and other local contributions helped pay for the equipment.