ESPAÑOLA, N.M. — After years of planning and fundraising, a northern New Mexico animal shelter is moving forward with plans to serve thousands more pets each year.

Nine years and 50,000 spay-and-neuters later, Española Humane broke ground on their second clinic. Community donations made it possible.

The second clinic will be in Ohkay Owingeh – a first for the pueblo.

“Animal humane is our first tenant here on our lands, which is a huge mark for Ohkay Owingeh. We are proud to share our business-friendly economic development policies and procedures,” said Benny J. Lujan, the governor of Ohkay Owingeh.

Kate Baldwin, the executive director of Española Humane, says the first clinic handles 40-50 surgeries a day. Baldwin said, if they want to make a difference, they have to go bigger.

“If we really want to make a bigger impact in the overpopulation situations that we have in northern New Mexico, we need more space. We need to do more surgeries and we can’t do it where we are currently located,” she said.

The second clinic is double in size – 7,000 square feet.

“It is enormous compared to what we are used to. And we’re going to be able to bring in an entirely new surgical team that’s going to increase our surgeries by 30%,” Baldwin said.

Española Humane has been saving money since 2023 for this new clinic.

“In addition to the $6 million of the capital cost, we’re looking to raise additional funds to cover the operations for the first few years until we can get sustainable. So the total campaign is around $9 million and we’ve raised over half of the funds towards that goal,” Baldwin said, adding it all came from donations.

The plan is to start construction on the second clinic next month and open in December.