Emancipet opened the doors of its newly expanded East Austin clinic in early August, roughly 4,000 square feet of exam rooms and surgical suites built on the exact spot where the nonprofit's very first brick-and-mortar location once stood. The clinic now carries a new name, too: the Amy Mills Emancipet Clinic, honoring the woman who led the organization as president and CEO for 17 years.
The renaming and expansion, celebrated at an event on September 29, mark a milestone for a clinic with deep roots in Austin's animal welfare history, according to Community Impact. The site at 7201 Levander Loop, Building I, sits on the City of Austin's Betty Dunkerley Public Health Campus, where Emancipet first set up shop in 2005 after the city granted the nonprofit a $1-per-year lease, according to Impact Austin. A $108,000 grant from Impact Austin in 2006 helped equip that first facility, giving Emancipet its first permanent home after years of operating strictly out of mobile vans.
Emancipet's presence on the campus means it shares ground with the municipal Austin Animal Center shelter, which opened at the site in November 2011 following a 2006 voter-approved bond, per CultureMap Austin. The shelter and Emancipet's clinic share the campus.
A Name Tied to Nearly Two Decades of Leadership
The new name honors Amy Mills, who led Emancipet as president and CEO starting in 2006 and stayed at the helm for 17 years. Cheryl Katon succeeded Mills as CEO on November 15, 2024, arriving at Emancipet after previously serving as vice president at Boston's Fenway Health.
Emancipet traces its origins to 1999, when veterinarian Dr. Ellen Jefferson founded the organization as a mobile program aimed at combating local shelter euthanasia rates that exceeded 85% at the time, according to Maddie's Fund. Jefferson later went on to lead Austin Pets Alive. Nearly three decades later, Emancipet now reports more than 260,000 visits a year across clinics in Austin, Killeen, Houston, and Philadelphia.
What the Expanded Clinic Offers
The Amy Mills Emancipet Clinic provides spay and neuter surgeries, dental care, soft tissue surgeries, heartworm testing and treatment, vaccines, microchips, and other preventive services. Surgeries require an appointment, while preventive and dental care are available on a walk-in basis. Emancipet charges the same prices for every client regardless of income, has no income requirements for its services, and offers financial help to those who cannot afford care.
Emancipet's low-cost Dental and Surgical Center in Austin offers soft-tissue procedures and specialized dental cleanings, with support from PetSmart Charities, according to Emancipet.
Affordable Spay and Neuter Services
The Killeen clinic lists spay/neuter surgery prices of $89 for cats and $125 for dogs, per the Community Impact report.
Emancipet has also raised about $5 million to launch three new mobile clinics over the next few years, including one planned for Austin. The expansion is expected to serve an additional 50,000 animals and provide 15,000 spay and neuter surgeries annually once fully underway.
A Citywide Push Backed by Municipal Dollars
The clinic expansion lands amid a broader citywide effort to drive up spay/neuter numbers. Austin Animal Services reported that municipal partners, including Emancipet, conducted more than 8,200 spay/neuter surgeries in 2026 through September, backed by more than $1 million in city funding aimed at reaching nearly 11,000 total surgeries for the year, according to Citizen Portal.
Emancipet frames its work as a response to a national affordability crisis in pet health care. By the nonprofit's own estimates, approximately 60 million pets across 30 million U.S. families lack access to affordable veterinary care, driven by a shortage of companion-animal veterinarians nationwide — roughly one for every 2,100 pets, the organization says on its website. Seven in ten of Emancipet's clients live in neighborhoods below regional median income levels.
That gap has pushed some private veterinary hospitals in Austin to refer cash-strapped pet owners to Emancipet for emergency or soft-tissue surgeries, according to a 2026 profile in Today's Veterinary Business. Those referred procedures typically cost $500 to $650 at Emancipet, compared with commercial quotes exceeding $4,000 — a model the trade publication says lets private vets steer patients toward necessary care without losing them from the system entirely.
In 2024, Emancipet marked its 25th anniversary. The newly renamed East Austin clinic now stands as a physical marker of that history, built on the same ground where the nonprofit's first permanent clinic opened two decades earlier.
