The Dubbo City Council Animal Shelter has made a turnaround in the past 12 months, and all for a more affordable price for the city's rate payers, according to council's environmental control manager Debbie Archer.

Ms Archer, along with her five staff members, said the main goal for the shelter was to minimise the number of animals coming through the gates.

In order to do that, Ms Archer said there was a need to increase the public awareness of the responsibilities involved in owning a pet.

In the 2014-15 financial year, Ms Archer said there had been 2546 animals held at the animal shelter.

"These were either found by our rangers, left in the overnight pens or surrendered," she said.

Ms Archer said the help of various local and regional rescue groups had assisted the shelter in rescuing the animals. With $80,000 worth of proposed upgrades for the facilities in the works, Ms Archer said those changes would hopefully be made in the next 12 months.

"The shelter was built to the current standards in 2005, but new standards and guidelines are due to be introduced this year," she said.

The upgrade is expected to include larger cat enclosures, and improvements to kennel drainage and design.