BillLindau

Low-cost spay/neuter clinic

Cynthia Williams of the Companion Animal Clinic of the Sandhills sits beside a sign that shows how much the non-profit organization has raised for its low-cost spay/neuter facility.

Pet clinic hopes lower spay/neuter fees
will help curb overpopulation
Moore County Independent, Oct. 19, 2006
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
VASS -- Dog and cat owners have heard this plea for years: Spay and neuter your companion animals, because each year the country has too many of them and not enough homes for them.
Many people would love do do that, but such procedures are luxuries they can't afford.
The Companion Animal Clinic of the Sandhills will soon be able to help those people, in nine counties of central North Carolina. The clinic has acquired a facility between Southern Pines and Vass, to spay and neuter dogs and cats at a reasonable cost. The CAC held an open house for the facility Sunday afternoon, to commemorate the event.
The clinics fees are expected to be $35 to neuter an adult tomcat, and $45 apiece to spay/neuter a dog of either sex and a female cat, Wilson says.
Thanks to a number of animal lovers with purses to match their enormous hearts, this place is news for low-income families and their four-legged friends, says Deborah Wilson, president of the CAC's board.
About 80 animals a day are euthanized in the nine counties served by the CAC. "For every one animal that's adopted, there are eight or nine that aren't," Wilson said. She added that North Carolina is one of the top three states to produce too many pets.
In 2005, county animal control received more than 3,000 animals, the clinic reported. About 65 to 70 percent of unwanted animals turned in to shelters have been euthanized, said Joe Currie, a retired veterinarian who serves on the CAC board.
Getting the CAC up and running is important because of the severity of the overpopulation problem in the Sandhills, Wilson said.
The clinic is expected to open in about the spring or summer of 2007, as long as funds come in as expected. An anonymous donor paid for the building, said board member Pat Smith.
The clinic will serve Moore County and eight other counties, Smith added: Chatham, Cumberland, Harnett, Hoke, Lee, Montgomery, Randolph and Richmond.
"We have met with the animal control officers (of all the counties)," Smith said.
"It's going to be the best thing that's happened to this county in terms of animal control. A lot of the surrounding counties are (delighted) about it," Wilson said.
Smith said the clinic hopes to bring a program to the schools to educate students about the importance of spay and neutering companion animals. She believes the surrounding counties, with more rural areas, will benefit especially from the clinic's low-cost spay/neuter program.
The CAC will not serve as an animal shelter but will be strictly for spay and neutering procedures for dogs and cats, Wilson said. The clinic needs to raise a total of $595,000 for the programs it has in the works. Already $242,000 has been raised, Wilson said. This does not include the money that went to the purchase of the clinic, Smith added.
"We will not open the clinic until we've raised at least half of the $595,000," Wilson said recently. "And we're almost there."
"We were working on this awhile," added Wilson, a history and geography instructor at Sandhills Community College.
A good chunk of the funds raised came from the clinic's "De-Sex in the City" dinner dance and auction, held Oct. 7 at The Fair Barn in Pinehurst, Wilson said.
"We won't have any services until the clinic's ready," Wilson went on. "We're not a housing facility."
Wilson said when the clinic opens, two veterinarians and a number of veterinary technicians will be hired to perform the procedures. The surgery "will be done light," Wilson said. "We're not going to pass the cost on to the public."
In the meantime, the money raised is going towards the renovation of the building, located just north of Dunrovin Country Store, on U.S. 1 North.
Wilson hopes to obtain a grant from the state, and will also continue to depend on private donations.
The clinic has been a hit with the public as well as local veterinarians, Wilson said.
"The community support has been incredible," she said. "It's just heart-arming how many people were there (at the dance). I think the community is ready for this."
Local veterinarians are very active in this program, Wilson said. She says they make no money off the vouchers they provide for indigent cat and dog owners. "This program will take the burden off them."
One of the goals "is to make it so the CAC only has to put on one good-sized fund-raiser a year," Wilson said.
This program began two years ago, and its 501C-3 status was granted by the state of North Carolina early this year, Wilson said. This is a status granted to non-profit organizations.
The clinic is not setting sail in uncharted waters, Wilson said. It is modeling its system on a "tried and true" program, the Humane Alliance of Asheville. The Moore County clinic is working with both the Humane Alliance and the North Carolina State veterinary school.
The Humane Alliance serves 23 counties in western North Carolina, with its own low-cost spay/neuter program. A drastic reduction in the euthanasia rates has been reported in those counties.
"We didn't invent any of this," Wilson said. "It's proven. We know it works. The Asheville Humane Alliance has reduced the euthanasia rates by over 65 percent."
Sunday's open house featured a floor plan, with the various areas marked off: The surgery operating room, the garden, an enclosed outside kennel, a surgery prep room, recovery rooms for felines and canines, an employee lounge and an examination room. Donors can have the rooms named after them for various amounts contributed.
Wilson said the clinic doesn't expect to make much of a difference in the overpopulation rate at first, but "I think by the third or fourth year we're going to see a dent in it, a sizable reduction in the euthanasia rate."
"Dogs and cats can enrich your life," Wilson said. "It's not fair to not own an animal just because you can't afford one. That's not our philosophy. We're going to make it easy."
Currie, Smith, Wilson, Barbara Mudge, Neal Jarest, Marie Schwindl, equine veterinarian Tom Daniel and Cynthia Williams are on the board.
For more information on the Companion Animal Clinic, visit its Web site at www.companionanimalclinic.org; write Companion Animal Clinic, P.O. Box 148, Southern Pines, NC 28388; or call Wilson at 692-9650.
Animal shelter employees take no pleasure in performing one of their many tasks, that of euthanizing healthy, friendly animals, Wilson said. If the clinic can drastically chop the rate at which unwanted cats and dogs end up being put to sleep, it will help abolish the negative image of animal shelters as execution chambers, she says.
"We want people to think of shelters as places you go to adopt animals, not where you take them to be put to sleep."

posted by Bill Lindau @ 9:57 AM