Lexington County emergency personnel are being tapped to help save more lives.

The county’s Animal Services features multiple dogs a week through its Dog of the Week partnerships with Lexington fire, EMS, dispatch and law enforcement services. Individuals who from these services get to hand-pick a dog they want to feature online.

The program started last year with the Deputy Dog of The Week partnership with the county Sheriff’s Department before growing to include the other three agencies.

“One of the detectives used to be a canine officer and has a soft spot for German Shepherds. And it seemed that we had a German Shepherd that was up for adoption,” Stephen Collins, the county’s animal services director, said of how the program started. “He came and posed with that dog and his benefactor was adopted a day or two later.”

Collins told the Chronicle that since the program started, all but six of the 51 featured dogs have been adopted. The shelter tries to post a dog for each service at least once a week with designated days for each.

The dogs are promoted through the shelter's Facebook with posts that include what agency is featuring the dog along with a photo of the emergency worker with their chosen dog. 

Outside of this program, the shelter is still putting in the work to promote all the dogs it has available, including partnering with the Lexington PetSmart to help get them adopted and participating in the Woofstock fundraising event last October at the Icehouse Amphitheater.

“Getting all of the animals adopted is our goal,” Collins said. “We want to zero euthanasia rates and we want all of the dogs to go to good homes and put them with people that are gonna love them and take care of them.”