A well-known animal shelter in Monroe County will once again have its own veterinary clinic. AWSOM’s Wellness Center is reopening its doors next month after it closed a little over a year ago.

The waiting room is empty now but we’re told the phones and emails haven’t stopped since AWSOM Wellness Center announced it’ll be reopening to the public.

AWSOM Animal Shelter General Manager Jackie Fritz says, "It looks like the whole first week is almost already fully booked."

It closed the end of April last year due to a personnel work stoppage. The shelter board members were unable to resolve the issues and decided it was best to part ways. Now the low-cost clinic has a completely new staff.

AWSOM Operations VP Brandon Overbeck says, "We did get two vets that came in that were helping us on a once or twice basis just so we could get some of our shelter animals seen and surgeries done on them. And then we’ve brought in a few more vets, we currently have three veterinarians on staff right now."

The facility itself also has a lot of upgrades including new flooring, paint, lighting and equipment. But the major change is it’s now appointment only.

Fritz says, "It makes it a lot easier to keep the schedule under control so there’s not long wait times or anything like that because people are just walking in."

Marshalls Creek Resident Andrea Fritz is looking forward to bringing her cats back to the clinic. She tells us it’s been tough without it as she was at the shelter today checking out the dogs, "Even though there’s other places in the area, it was very hard to get into and this is just cost-effective, and you know they knew your animals."

While the clinic is no longer taking emergency calls, it will be re-establishing the spay and neuter program for feral cats.

Overbeck says, "We’re not doing any ferals at this point, but in the near future we will be doing the feral cats again. It’s a very major issue in this area and all over the world right now."

We’re told the nonprofit is just excited to have vets on hand once again.

Overbeck says, "We had to outsource the majority of our surgeries and stuff. I mean some of the local veterinarians, Smithfield Animal Hospital and Creature Comforts, they give us very good deals on everything, but we were still paying a lot more than what we were when we were doing it in house so it was taking a toll on us."

AWSOM Wellness Center will officially reopen on July 1st in Stroud Township.