About WHS

Saving lives for more than 50 years!

Thousands of lives saved!

Watauga Humane Society was formed December 12th, 1969 to house, care for, and find homes for stray, abandoned, and unwanted animals. Since then, we have happily grown to meet the needs of the animals and the people of Watauga County. In 2011 we merged with Watauga County Animal Care and Control and constructed a new facility to maximize our life saving initiatives. We received our 501(c)(3) certification in 1979, meaning all gifts to WHS are tax deductible!

Our entire history has been consolidated into a single document for ease of viewing.
Learn all about our fifty years of service here!

WHS Mission

The Watauga Humane Society promotes animal welfare by providing services to improve the lives of companion animals and the people who love them.

Commitment / Services

Our commitment to animal welfare includes:

  • Maintaining our no-kill status. We seek forever homes for every healthy, adoptable animal we take in.*
  • Providing a safe place for homeless animals to stay while they seek forever homes. This includes all animals seized by Watauga County Animal Control.
  • Providing medical services to animals in our care.
  • Providing low-cost spay/neuter services to our community members facing financial hardship.
  • Offering educational programs about animal welfare and pet care.

*More information on No Kill: https://bestfriends.org/no-kill-2025/what-does-no-kill-mean

Our mission helps fuel our vision - the vision of a no-more homeless pet community and to end euthanasia of healthy and adoptable animals. Through our low-cost spay/neuter program, public education program, medical funds and correlations with our local vets, and adoption programs we have been able to reduce the euthanasia rate to 4% in 2018.

Partners / Involvement

In an effort to be transparent with our community, and to help contribute real statistics to the US shelter animal reports, we are partnered with Shelter Animals Counts.

"Shelter Animals Count is a new, collaborative initiative formed by a diverse group of stakeholders to create and share a national database of sheltered animal statistics, providing facts, and enabling insights that will save lives."

You can view our statistics here!

Please check out the following resources for more information on Watauga Humane Society!