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.
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.”