For Linden Spear, the waiting is the hardest part.

Spear runs The Haven, a no-kill shelter in Hoke County. It is one of the largest animal shelters in the state.

In May, the state’s attorney general’s office gave The Haven a deadline of Sept. 1 to remodel the facility and reduce the number of animals there to comply with state regulations or face possible closure.

As of Thursday morning, the state had yet to inspect the facility.

“We are on pins and needles,” Spear said by phone Thursday morning.

She said the facility has been upgraded, and the animal population, which once totaled nearly 1,000, has been “significantly” reduced, though she couldn’t provide an exact number.

Spear said the shelter has remodeled its surgery suite and turned an existing 14-stall horse barn into a building to house cats and dogs, built four new catteries and replaced nearly two-thirds of its kennel fencing.

“Obviously we have made a huge, huge effort to come into compliance, but we still have work to do,” she said.

That work includes additional renovations to the veterinary clinic as well as catteries and fencing.

She said the facility has materials for much of those repairs, but needs volunteers to help complete the work.

If The Haven fails to bring its facility into compliance, it will face being either shut down or taken over by the state.

Spear said she hopes that the progress they have made will be enough to convince the state to extend the deadline.

“If not the, lawyers will sort it out,” she said.

In July, inspectors from the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services visited the shelter to check its progress and reported that the shelter still had improvements to make.

Spear said then she had been unable to meet the standards of the North Carolina Animal Welfare Act (NCAWA) because it requires her to pay for a lot of facility changes she can’t afford. She estimated the total cost of the changes needed to meet the deadline is about $60,000.

The shelter takes a number of dogs from the Moore County Animal Center, some that might otherwise be euthanized.

Contact Tom Embrey at tembrey@thepilot.com.