Lexington County, like most places, has its fair share of stray cats and dogs. It also has several groups trying to find them homes.

Chief among these groups is the county’s Animal Services.

Stephen Collins, the services’ director/chief, said the county arm increased its Christmas-time adoptions from 90 in 2021 to around 120-125 in 2022. The shelter posted to its Facebook that total adoptions for December were 138.

Collins said at this time of year, the shelter sees an increase in animals coming into the shelter, the main reason being that people are relocating.

The shelter is fitted with a play yard, which allows for meet-and-greets between families who already have a pet and prospective new ones. Collins said this is also a good opportunity for the family to see if their desired dog is good with kids, something that can be difficult for the shelter to gauge since children aren’t always around.

“We do encourage bringing them into the play yard and letting the families get to know the dog before they take that big step of bringing another living being into their house,” Collins said.

Some things that the shelter can better determine are a dog's temperament, if they are good with cats and dogs, and if they are good around men or women.

Collins told the Chronicle the county Animal Services partner with multiple organizations, one being the well-publicized Pawmetto Lifeline, located at 1275 Bower Pkwy. in Columbia.

The partnership with Pawmetto led to the introduction of the Community Cat Program, which involves trapping, spaying/neutering, and releasing to help the overpopulation of community cats.

According to the County of Lexington and Pawmetto Lifeline, Inc. agreement, a community cat is a cat that is domesticated that lives indoors and outdoors (sometimes called free-roaming), and/or a feral cat, which means a cat that is unsocialized or unaccustomed to human interaction.

Collins said some people want to keep these feral cats around, whether it's to keep snakes and rodents at bay or just because they enjoy them. He said that as long as the cats aren’t harming anything or causing damage they work to keep them where they are.

“It's much more humane that we're not bringing in the feral cats and subjecting them to possibly being euthanized because there's not another alternative,” he said. “So we want to work with the community to encourage responsible pet ownership and work with the program of cat neutering or releasing the cat's back to live out their lives in their communities.”

Within the county, there are also smaller-scale rescues that do what they can to help the animals of the county. 

Cullen’s Archangels, a nonprofit rescue, told the Chronicle that all their rescued pets are in a climate-controlled building or foster homes. The rescue is also working with two colonies of free-roaming cats, trapping and vetting them, taming the ones they can and adopting them out, and relocating older cats to an indoor kitty cottage. They are nearly done with one of these colonies and hope to finish with another this year.

Feral Cat Solutions, a rescue in Chapin, told the Chronicle that getting these cats trapped, and neutered and stopping them from having kittens allows them to stabilize a colony and better make sure they’re all fed.

When it comes to stray dogs, the county is actively trying to catch them.

Collins encourages people to call about stray dogs since there is a chance the dog is microchipped and could be reunited with its owners.

The county, which just received a large donation from Chewy, also works with community service organizations and food banks to help provide pet goods.

“We're here to assist the community,” He said “We want to encourage responsible pet ownership and we will do anything that we can to help people be good pet owners. “