Veterinary Hospital

Community Veterinary Services

Shelter Medicine

dog in a shelterDr. Phillip Bushby with catMississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine places special emphasis in preventing unwanted litters, and increasing the chance of pet adoptions.   Spaying and neutering puppies and kittens have been found to greatly increase adoption rates.  Under the leadership of Dr. Philip Bushby, the school has organized a way to make a difference.  With the financial assistance of AKC-CAR and the HSUS the College has obtained a mobile veterinary unit which is used to provide spay and neuter services to animal shelters in Mississippi.  Dr. Bushby takes students to 8 different shelters and the students perform, on average, 25 surgeries each trip.  With 3 trips per week, the program has performed nearly 5000 surgeries in the past 15 months. The Mobile Veterinary Unit can also be employed to provide animal recovery and care in a time of disaster.  The university has started a Shelter Medicine internship and is seeking funding to start a shelter medicine residency to further educate the next generation of veterinarians to care for shelter animals and to solve the problem of overpopulation of unwanted pets.

Our Shelter Medicine service has many goals.  It seeks to increase student awareness and understanding of issues related to over population of unwanted dogs and cats and the issues faces by animal shelters.  It helps show the role future veterinarians can play in addressing the overpopulation of unwanted dogs and cats.  The services provided to the local shelters increase the number of animals adopted while providing students experience in routine elective surgery.


Pet adoption video made by two of our senior students, Katie Pruett and Kaysey Burns.