Charleston County Dog Parks

By: Joe Elmore, Charleston Animal Society CEO One year ago, a horse named Blondie was pulling a wagon full of tourists on […]

A young, gray and white dog not even a year old, was left bleeding on the side of a North Charleston street on a late afternoon in June. What happened to the dog is the definition of cruelty. 

Fall 2026 is the target date for the first class at Clemson University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. A recent funding increase is keeping the project moving forward, just as South Carolina continues grappling with the effects of a statewide and national veterinarian shortage.

Each year, the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) publishes its U.S. State Animal Protection Laws Ranking Report. It is the longest-running and most authoritative of its kind, assessing the strength of each state and territory’s animal protection laws by examining over 3,600 pages of statutes. Each state and territory are ranked based on 20 different categories of animal protection. Unfortunately, South Carolina is almost dead last, falling to #47 when it comes to the strength of animal protection laws here.