By Charles Owens
For Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Princeton — Efforts to reopen a county clinic that provided low-cost spaying and neutering for local pet owners are ongoing.
Furever Fixed, Inc., which opened in October 2024 off Shelter Road near the Mercer County Animal Shelter, was temporarily closed back in February because it didn’t have a veterinarian. The clinic was created as a way to help pet owners and reduce overcrowding at the animal shelter.
The search for a new veterinarian to staff the clinic continues, according to county commissioner Brian Blankenship.
“So their board is actively trying to find an available veterinarian — certified veterinarian,” Blankenship said. “I think the issue that they ran into was some of our local vets that was graciously helping us out on the side, they’ve got non competing agreements that was in place with their employer that came into play.”
Blankenship said the Furever Fixed board is actively looking for someone who can step in and help, including the possibility of veterinarian students looking for internship opportunities.
“We really would like to get that back open to help out the community,” Blankenship said.
The clinic has been closed for more than two months now, but spring puppy and kitten season also is fast approaching, which could lead to a new influx of dogs and cats at the animal shelter.
“That was a great program that was initiated here a few years ago,” Blankenship said of the spay-neuter clinic. “And you know we hope to get that up and running here very soon. We just need some good qualified people that we can attract.”
The issue may be discussed again next week by the commission, according to board president Bill Archer.
“We discussed it during our pre-meeting, and it’s on our agenda for our next meeting to discuss some ideas here,” Archer said. “I’m not at liberty to release exactly what those things are. But hopefully it will resolve the issue up there that we’ve had, and hopefully we’ll be able to get some good insights from the people we’re going to talk to.”
Archer said the veterinarian vacancy at the clinic will likely be discussed during an executive session of the commission on Tuesday.
The county clinic ran into problems competing with private clinics, according to Archer.
“It’s difficult to compete with veterinarians that come out and want to go into private practice,” Archer said. “So anyway, we’re going to discuss that.”
The decision was made in February to temporarily close the clinic after the board of directors of Furever Fixed Inc. announced that they no longer had a veterinarian and had no leads at that time for getting a new one.
Furever Fixed was established back in 2024 as a part of a joint effort by the county and the cities of Bluefield and Princeton to try to reduce the number of homeless dogs and cats across the region by offering pet owners with low-cost spaying and neutering. The Mercer County Animal Shelter has had to regularly declare code red alerts due to overcrowding at the animal shelter.
A code red is declared when euthanasia may have to be considered as a way to open up more room. Although many code red alerts have been issued by the shelter in recent years, the shelter has largely been able to avoid euthanasia in recent years thanks to special adoption events often sponsored by local businesses and organizations.
Besides providing low-cost spaying and neutering for Mercer County’s pet owners, the clinic also performed the procedures for dogs and cats in neighboring counties as well.
West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture Kent Leonhardt said when the clinic opened in 2024 that spaying and neutering dogs and cats costs less than euthanizing them. In 2023, the cost of spaying and neutering 18,186 animals in West Virginia was $1,005,339. In contrast, the cost of euthanizing 4,980 animals that same year was $1,085,640.
Read more from the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, here.