Mornings are busy at the Athens Area Humane Society. Surgeries in its wellness clinic start at 8 a.m. Animals are carried to the operating tables — the larger dogs take two people — as technicians and assistants tend to pets and veterinary students watch the doctors work.
Dr. Amanda Calvird begins most of her mornings at the operating table, helping the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization save pets’ lives.
Calvird is one of three veterinarians who perform surgery, wellness care and shelter medicine — defined as the care of underserved animals — for adoption animals. The nonprofit relies on donors to offer affordable veterinary services and run its adoption program and other initiatives.
“It makes me feel good to walk out the door knowing that (because) I’ve used the gift of this education and the gift of my surgical skills, someone’s going to be able to keep their dog in their home,” Calvird said.
Credit: Samantha Hurley
Credit: Samantha Hurley
Half of her workday is generally devoted to spay and neuter surgeries, a service she says is central to the society’s mission to ensure access to care. The humane society is expected to exceed 7,000 spay and neuter surgeries by the end of 2023, which would be another record for the organization, Calvird said. In 2022, it had a record 6,007 surgeries.
“Increasing access to spay/neuter services serves our mission in several ways,” she said. “Mainly, it’s helping pet parents keep their pets in their home.”
Those homes extend beyond Athens. Calvird and the other doctors provide relief work for shelters across Northeast Georgia. Pets are transported to receive surgery in Athens, then back to their shelter, which may not have enough or any veterinarians on staff. Of Georgia’s 159 counties, 53 had a veterinarian shortage of critical or high priority in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Calvird graduated with a degree in biology from the University of Georgia in 2015 and a doctor of veterinary medicine degree from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 2019. She then worked as an ambulatory veterinarian caring for horses in Canton, Georgia, near where she attended high school.
“I really love equine medicine,” Calvird said. “I had horses as a kid growing up, and I was lucky enough to be able to work in the community that I grew up in.”
She took a position in September 2022 at the Athens Area Humane Society caring for small animals, which was a career shift.
“In this role, I can help actually serve my community rather than just be a citizen,” she said.
Calvird came to the humane society just in time and allowed the clinic to increase its ability to perform surgeries and offer care.
“Her coming here pretty much was a godsend because we had been looking for a while for that third veterinarian,” said Dr. Jennifer Varner, another Athens Area Humane Society veterinarian. “She’s never complained. She just got right in there (and) worked hard to pick up her speed in surgery.”
Credit: Samantha Hurley
Credit: Samantha Hurley
With “palpable” demand and appointments that pick up quickly, Calvird feels the pressure to help as many pets as she can. She has nursed animals back to health for weeks at her home, drives to the humane society in the evenings to check on sick pets and follows up on the status of her patients long after her job is done.
“I think sometimes people feel like (I) never stop working,” Calvird said. “And it’s true, in some ways, but it doesn’t feel like work, really.”
In one instance, providing relief work at a different shelter on her day off, Calvird received two dogs that had been hit by a car in separate incidents. Calvird stabilized the dogs, but both animals were strays. Calvird established a plan for both dogs to remain comfortable and receive follow-up medical care. One found a home through a rescue group and the other was adopted through the shelter.
Unfortunately, not every case responds to treatment, and not every pet finds a home.
“The hardest moments are when I’m treating a patient that doesn’t have a family yet and it’s not going well,” Calvird said. “There are moments where I’m the last one saying goodbye to an animal that doesn’t have a home yet. There’s nobody else there for them but me.”
Working at a time of national need for qualified veterinarians, Calvird shows every animal the care she shows her own dog, a German shepherd named Dale. He’s a Scorpio — Calvird keeps his star chart on her phone — and just celebrated his fourth birthday.
“It’s very important to me to somehow make (the animals) feel loved,” she said. “To love them like they’re mine.”
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