Veterinary Care

• Community Animal Center:

For non-emergency concerns or pick-up of heartworm or flea/tick preventatives, please email foster@lifelineanimal.org with your needs, and one of our veterinarians will contact you via phone to either set-up an appointment or to have a phone consult.

Walk-ins for emergencies are available. Please contact the team using the emergency phone line provided in our Contact page.

For foster pets in need of vaccine boosters, typically puppies or kittens, you can make an appointment with the clinic using these Calendly links: Calendly - Dog and Cat Boosters

• DeKalb County Animal Services:

For non-emergency concerns or pick-up of heartworm or flea/tick preventatives, please email foster@dekalbanimalservices.com with your needs, and our team will set you up with an appointment.

For foster pets in need of vaccine boosters, typically puppies or kittens, you can make an appointment with the clinic using these Calendly links: Calendly - Dog Boosters | Calendly - Cat Boosters

For refills of existing prescriptions, please complete this request form and a member of the clinic team will email you to let you know when the refill is available to pick up.

If your foster is heartworm positive, review DeKalb County Animal Services Heartworm Treatment protocol here. 

• Fulton County Animal Services:

For vaccines or non-emergency concerns, walk-ins are accepted from 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM, Monday - Friday.

We have walk-in hours available for vaccines or non-emergency concerns on Saturday and Sunday, 11:00 AM  - 3:00 PM, but limited veterinary staff onsite those days (only technicians, not veterinarians). Please understand you may be asked to come back during a week day to be seen by a veterinarian based on the technician's assessment.

For regular heartworm or flea/tick preventatives, walk-ins are accepted daily during open hours, 11:00 AM - 7:00 PM Monday - Friday, and 11:00 AM  - 6:00 PM Saturday - Sunday.

For refills of existing prescriptions, please contact the foster team by email in advance to request the refill before coming to the shelter.

If your foster is heartworm positive, review Fulton County Animal Services Heartworm Treatment protocol here. 

• First, your dog will be prescribed 30 days of doxycycline antibiotics. This medication kills bacteria which live in the heartworms. These bacteria help the worms survive and reproduce. They also may cause worsening inflammation when adult heartworms die. By giving this antibiotic prior to the medication that will kill your dog’s heartworms, we decrease the likelihood of complications from the treatment and optimize the chance for complete elimination of the infection. These will need to be administered twice daily. Please try to give these pills to your foster dog in their food or on a full stomach. Your dog should also be on monthly heartworm prevention provided to you by the foster team.

• Once your foster dog has completed his/her 30 days of antibiotics, please reach out to your shelter foster team to make appointments for *two consecutive weekdays* for your foster’s heartworm injections. These injections consist of a medication called melarsomine and need to be injected 24 hours apart. These melarsomine injections will be scheduled 30 days after your foster dog has completed his/her antibiotics. For example, if your foster dog finished his/her antibiotics on January 3rd, then we would schedule the injections around February 3rd. 

• On the day of the injections, please check in with the front desk and mention you are here for heartworm injections. The injections are administered in the lower back and often cause discomfort, including pacing and panting. Our clinic should provide you with some medication to help with this discomfort. Please note, a small square will be shaved on your dog's back for this procedure. The following day you will return to the shelter for the second injection. Please note, due to space concerns, we do not have the ability to house dogs overnight.

• Following injections, your dog must stay on very low activity. It is imperative your dog is crate rested for 30 days after injections. The most important thing you can do to minimize complications during treatment is to restrict your pet’s exercise after the melarsomine injections. When adult worms die, they collapse and are pushed deeper into the smaller branches of the vessels that supply blood to the lungs. Because exercise increases blood flow to the lungs, it increases the likelihood that dead worms will block blood flow. This can result in severe complications and possibly death. The Importance of restricting your dog’s activity cannot be overemphasized.

If any of the following signs below occur at any point during your foster dog's heartworm treatment, please call your foster coordinator immediately to have your dog seen by a vet as soon as possible. These signs may indicate a genuine emergency:

• 1. 1. • Severe coughing 

        • Coughing up blood

        • Labored breathing

        • Lethargy, listlessness, or collapse

If we do observe signs of advanced heartworm disease, our veterinarian will decide if your foster dog needs to be on a longer treatment protocol including three injections, instead of two. In this scenario we would start the foster dog on 30 days of doxycycline antibiotics and then 30 days after finishing the antibiotics, the dog will receive his/her 1st heartworm injection. Another 30 days after the 1st injection, your foster dog will come back to get the two consecutive heartworm injections. Your foster coordinator will be in touch with you to discuss alternative treatments if needed.