BUCKHANNON – Construction of the surgical suite at the Lewis-Upshur Animal Control Facility should be completed around the beginning of February.

LUAC director Jan Cochran said the county maintenance department has been hard at work getting the room for the surgical suite ready, but the recent snowstorm had slowed the process.

“Everything that has to go in the room — the door, cabinets, the floor — is purchased, so hopefully by the end of this week or next week, they will have all that done,” Cochran said Monday. “We’re still waiting on our surgical light and some equipment that has not arrived yet, so once all that comes, we will have the inspector come. Once he inspects it and gives us to go ahead, we’ll be up and running.”

With the new surgical suite, LUAC will be able spay and neuter animals without traveling to an outside vet.

“We’ll start doing our surgeries here, so once you adopt from us, you will pay your adoption fee and the animal will stay with us until surgery day,” Cochran said. “As of right now, I think that that will be Friday, so you pick up your pet on Saturday. We have not determined what our prices are going to be yet, but it’s going to be cheaper than adopting from us and going to another vet, even with the $50 voucher you’re getting from us.”

This will also help LUAC ensure new owners get their animals fixed or spayed.

“When you adopt a dog from here, you get a rabies shot, spayed or neutered, and then we will also have optional services, like if you want heartworm test, you can pay extra for that,” Cochran said. “It goes directly to the vet; we won’t make any money or anything like that. If you want to get your cat an FIV test, you can have that done, but it’ll be an extra cost. That will be on the contract, and there will be places to check on the application where you can check the extra services.”

After the suite has been active for a few months, they plan to offer clinics so other members of the community can get their animals spayed or neutered as well. LUAC is also collaborating with the Weston Tractor Supply this Saturday to organize an adoption event from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m.

“We’ll have one to two employees there with animals and hopefully we find some adoptive homes,” Cochran said. “We just had an adoption, and Mariah did a good job. She adopted only one cat yesterday, but we adopted five dogs, and the day before that, Christy adopted out a cat and three dogs. But we know we have dogs coming in today already, so it’s just never-ending.”