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Community Pet Days (low-cost or free vaccination & microchips)
Community Pet Days are events that offer pet owners:
- Some low-cost veterinary services (rabies shots, some additional dog and cat vaccines and microchips)
- Information on affordable spay/neuter resources
- Information on how to find affordable pet food and supplies
- Information about Wake County Health and Human Services resources
- Information about keeping pets and people healthy
What you need to know:
- Weather: Community Pet Day is a rain or shine event.
- Rabies vaccine: 1-year and 3-year vaccines are offered. Cost $5.
- Microchips: $10
- HPP: a combination vaccine that protects against five dog diseases (distemper, canine hepatitis, canine adenovirus, canine parainfluenza, and parvovirus). No cost.
- FVRCP a combination vaccine that protects against three cat diseases: feline herpesvirus 1 (FHV-1), feline calicivirus (FCV) and feline panleukopenia (FPV or feline distemper) No cost.
Spay & Neuter Clinics
Pet Food Assistance
Rehoming Your Pet
The decision to rehome a pet is one that most people don't make easily. Is the problem you have temporary? Do you find yourself facing an emergency? Are there resources out there to help? What are the best methods to rehome?
Check out our list of resources and suggestions here.
Euthanizing Your Pet
Deciding when to euthanize your pet is one of the most difficult decisions a pet owner makes. The Ohio State University has a wonderful document called "How Do I Know When it's Time" to help pet owners with end-of-life decisions. This document also includes a quality-of-life scale for owners to use to determine if their pet is still having a good quality of life or if they are beginning to have a poorer quality of life. This also goes into the decision-making process.
After euthanizing your pet, if you would like to have your pet individually euthanized and their ashes returned, these are two of the local crematory services. You can contact them directly for more information.
Finally, the cost of euthanasia should not be a barrier to ending your pet's suffering. The Wake County Animal Center does offer no-cost, owner-requested euthanasia. For more information, please contact us directly at 919- 212-7387.
Emergency Clinics
Emergency Preparedness
Safety Tips for Pets (watch out for weather, water, what they eat, and more!)
Pet Enrichment Guide
A bored pet can be a destructive pet. For ideas on how to entertain your pet, check out our Pet Enrichment guide.
Dog-Friendly Housing – All Breeds Allowed
Many dogs are surrendered to the Wake County Animal Center because their family is moving and they cannot go along because of breed restrictions. Click here (Spanish version) to see a list of communities that do NOT have breed restrictions, which helps keep families together!
Responsible Dog Ownership
The purpose of the Neighborly Dog Owner Guidelines is to encourage dog owners to respect individual and common property, as well as to ensure the safety of all residents. Dog ownership comes with many responsibilities. Included in these responsibilities is the consideration of others in your community.
There are many aspects of responsible dog ownership. This article on Responsible Dog Ownership will review the basic needs of all dogs as well as different ways dogs are housed.
Pet Identification
The Wake County Animal Center would like to reunite all missing pets with their owners. To help us do this, we need animals to wear proper identification and/or be microchipped. Learn more about microchips and ID tags.