{"id":29499,"date":"2025-12-16T11:03:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T16:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/?p=29499"},"modified":"2025-12-16T11:03:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T16:03:00","slug":"departments-spay-and-neuter-grants-program-announces-fy26-grant-recipients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/press-release\/2025\/12\/16\/departments-spay-and-neuter-grants-program-announces-fy26-grant-recipients\/","title":{"rendered":"Department\u2019s Spay and Neuter Grants Program Announces FY26 Grant Recipients\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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ANNAPOLIS, MD (December 16, 2025)<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The\u00a0Maryland Department of Agriculture\u2019s Spay and Neuter Grants Program<\/strong>\u00a0has announced\u00a038 grant projects\u00a0<\/strong>will receive funding to efficiently and effectively facilitate, promote, and increase spay and neuter services for cats and dogs in Maryland. Grants are selected by a seven-member advisory board, appointed by the Maryland Secretary of Agriculture, that reviews all grant applications and provides funding recommendations to the Secretary.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

These projects will receive a total of $1,001,665.00 in funding to complete\u00a014,444 spay and neuter surgeries\u00a0<\/strong>for pets of low-income Marylanders, and free-roaming unowned cats. Projects will begin on January 1, 2026, and will conclude when grant funding is exhausted, or December 31, 2026. Recipients include government animal shelters and 501(c)3 nonprofit animal welfare organizations. A full list of grant awardees can be found on the Spay and Neuter Grants Program\u00a0website<\/a>, where you can also find lists of all active\u00a0owned pet projects<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0feral cat projects<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cMaryland\u2019s Spay and Neuter program is highly successful, providing vital funding to numerous organizations that work to control the state\u2019s pet population,\u201d stated\u00a0Maryland Department of Agriculture Secretary Kevin Atticks<\/strong>. \u201cThe organizations receiving these grants perform an outstanding job delivering essential services to their communities.\u201d<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Launched in 2014 with the purpose of reducing intake and euthanasia in Maryland shelters, the Spay and Neuter Grants Program is funded through fees paid by the pet food industry for each product they register to sell within the state. To date, the program has awarded $9,827,838 in funds, totaling 355 grant projects that collectively have completed over 143,232 spay and neuter procedures.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The FY27 grant application cycle will open on Friday, January 16, 2026 at 12:00pm, and close on April 17, 2026 at 5:01pm. Please visit the\u00a0program website<\/a>\u00a0for application instructions and other information which is now available. The applications will be posted on this page at 12:00pm on January 16, 2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

For questions about the program or the grant applications, please contact the Spay and Neuter Grants Program Coordinator, Jen Swanson, at (410) 841-5766 or jen.swanson@maryland.gov.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Follow Maryland Department of Agriculture on Facebook\u00a0@MdAgDept<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANNAPOLIS, MD (December 16, 2025)\u00a0\u2013 The\u00a0Maryland Department of Agriculture\u2019s Spay and Neuter Grants Program\u00a0has announced\u00a038 grant projects\u00a0will receive funding to efficiently and effectively facilitate, promote, and increase spay and neuter services for cats and dogs in Maryland. Grants are selected by a seven-member advisory board, appointed by the Maryland Secretary of Agriculture, that reviews all  Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29500,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29499\/revisions\/29500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}