Lampasas welcomes new animal shelter Posted On: Saturday, Oct. 17 2009 05:36 AM By Jackie Stone
Killeen Daily Herald

LAMPASAS – Local animal lovers looking for a stray rescue have a shiny, brand new place to look for their new pets.

After a year of work, the Lampasas Animal Shelter is now open.

The city and county held a ribbon cutting and open house for the new facility on Thursday afternoon.

Kasey Dressell, the shelter supervisor and a former animal control officer, said the new shelter has plenty of room and will things easier on residents who come to the shelter.

Until June 2008 the city's animal shelter was run out of a veterinarian's office, Dressell said. After he retired, the city and Lampasas County ran separate shelters, which didn't have much room and caused some confusion about where strays and surrenders would end up.

"Anything found within the city limits went to the city, and then everything else was county and we had to get real touchy about, 'where did you find the dog?' So it was real confusing," Dressell said.

The new, roughly $500,000 shelter was built jointly by the county and city from money they had in their budgets.

"A great deal of work has gone into the shelter on behalf of the city and the county, and the city is just very pleased to have the county as our partner in this endeavor," said Lampasas Mayor Judith Hetherly.

The shelter has 58 dog runs and 17 cages for cats, and there are more on the way, Dressell said.

"It just gives us a lot more room to hold more," she said. "We can keep them longer for adoption. We don't have to put down as many."

The shelter will not do boarding or major medical procedures such as spaying and neutering, but it will accept all strays and surrenders and will perform adoptions. The city council has not set fees for the shelter yet, so for now everything is free, Dressell said.

Dressell said the shelter will work with rescues and has been in contact with the local Golden Retriever and Boxer rescues.

The shelter will be open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon.

For more information, go to http://www.petango.com/lampasasanimalshelter, or call (512) 556-8586.

Contact Jackie Stone at jstone@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7474.