Thanks to the generous support of donors to our Hantke Memorial Spay/Neuter Fund we have subsidized surgeries for 51 cats and dogs for Spay Day 2010. Low-income pet parents paid only $25 for the surgery and the Hantke Fund paid the remainder. The Washington Metropolitan Spay/Neuter Center and Fairfax Animal Hospital performed the surgeries at very low cost for us. We plan to do four more surgeries on Friday at Arlington Animal Hospital.
While Spay Day brings attention to the need for low-cost surgery in February each year, the League offers reduced cost spay and neuter year-round. The best way to solve the pet overpopulation problem is prevention!
Last October an owner surrendered two five-year-old Siberian huskies because of moving. Muska (male) and Sierra (female) turned out to be sweethearts. They needed to be spayed and neutered and Muska had an eye abnormality called entropian. We had the neutering surgery done and at the same time Muska's entropian was repaired thanks to our Woody and Mickey Healthy Pet Fund. We were all so excited when the pair were adopted in mid-November.
But two days after their adoption, the huskies were returned. They had whimpered and cried and had housetraining accidents in their new home. Although this behavior is not that unusual during a period of adjustment, the adopter did not think that he/she could work through it. Everyone here was disappointed but we believed that our lovable pair could do well with someone who could be patient with them.
On November 30 we had the chance to bring animals on Fox 5 TV and we chose to bring Muska and Sierra. Of course, they charmed everyone at the TV studio and showed off their adorable natures on camera. We posted the video on the dogs' detail pages on our Web site and also on Petfinder.
Miles away in Long Island, New York, a man searched Petfinder for a Siberian husky and found Muska and Sierra. He told us that as soon as he saw the video, he thought, "those are my dogs." He contacted us right away about adoption. We don't usually place animals that far away, but no one locally had shown interest in adopting them. The husky lover in New York sent us a reference from his veterinarian (he had owned a husky before) and sent us a video showing us his home.
On December 16 the man and his son drove down from Long Island and had their face-to-face meeting with the dogs and an interview with our adoption manager. They took Muska and Sierra home that day! They have since sent us reports that the dogs have settled into their new home beautifully--and they love all the snow!
Technology has made it a small world, and we're grateful for all the means available now to find that perfect home for a deserving animal.
Staff wears their Spay Day t-shirts to welcome pet owners on Friday morning.
We have had a fantastic response to our Spay Day offer of spaying/neutering cats and dogs for $25 plus getting a free microchip. Low-income owners of 70 pets in our community have taken advantage of this opportunity to protect their pets' health and prevent unwanted litters!
Last Friday at 6:30am we loaded up 30 animals in our van and drove them to the Spay Neuter Center. By 9:00pm that night all of the pets had been returned to their owners newly neutered and microchipped. We're doing it again this Friday! We had so much interest in the program that several other pets will be getting the same services at Fairfax Animal Hospital.
While we offer low-cost neutering all year round, this special applies only to our participation in Spay Day. It's great to see so many loved companions getting such a needed service.
It starts as a trickle and quickly becomes a flood. Homeless kittens, that is, come flooding into animal shelters every spring, and it doesn’t stop until fall. At the Arlington animal shelter the trickle has begun. We have 26 unweaned kittens in six different volunteer foster homes already. We receive kittens from many sources: owners who haven’t neutered their cats and many, many stray kittens rescued by good Samaritans. Some come in with a mother cat, but most do not. Some can’t eat solid food yet and must be bottle fed. Some have never experienced human contact and must be handled and socialized. Most of these tiny kittens would not survive without the special care (sometimes round the clock) of foster caretakers.
Once these kittens are eight weeks old and weigh at least two pounds, their foster parents bring them back to the shelter for adoption. All of them are spayed or neutered before going to their forever homes so that they do not perpetuate the cycle of increasing numbers of homeless cats.
Our foster caretakers have room in their hearts and in their homes for defenseless creatures that need their care to survive. Although they may have a hard time letting go of their “babies” when it’s time for adoption, foster parents love to see their kittens going to loving, permanent homes.
And we can't forget the adult cats in our shelter. Some of which have been waiting for months for the right person to give them love and security in a permanent home. In the summer when there are many adorable kittens for adoptions, these adult cats are often overlooked. They need homes just as much as the kittens do.
Today some of our staff arrived at 6:00am to check-in low-income clients who had registered their pets for low-cost neutering surgery through our Spay Day USA program. To do our share of the national Spay Day USA program run by the Humane Society of the United States, the League offered spays and neuters for cats and dogs for only $25. We also offered a microchip and registration for free for these pets.
We are subsidizing the costs not covered by the $25 fee from our Hantke Memorial Spay-Neuter Fund. We use this fund to offer low-cost neutering all year round.
This morning people showed up with 15 cats and eight dogs for surgery. They signed permission forms, paid $25 for each pet, and loaded them into crates in our transport van. Two League staffers drove the pets to the National Capital Area Spay Neuter Center. The Washington Humane Society and their partners created the center to provide low-cost surgeries for cats and dogs in the metro area.
Another staffer will drive downtown to pick up the animals this evening. The owners will retrieve their pets from the League in Arlington tonight. We will give them post-operative instructions for the care of their pets along with pain medication needed for three days.
On Friday we will repeat the entire process for 25 more pets of low-to-moderate-income people. This effort means that almost 50 cats and dogs in our community will NOT contribute to the pet overpopulation problem. They will NOT create litters upon litters that may end up homeless. They WILL be more likely to remain in their homes because they will not have the behavior or medical problems that can occur with unneutered pets.
We think Spay Day is a win-win situation for our community: the pets and the people.
Since 1944, the Animal Welfare League of Arlington has been committed to the humane treatment of animals and to the promotion of animal welfare. The League:
provides temporary care and refuge for homeless and suffering animals;
places animals in loving, responsible homes;
provides animal control services to Arlington County;
educates the public and provides a wide variety of community services
