Overpopulation Solution: Veterinarians donating time to help strays
The Lebanon Veterinary Hospital offered a solution by creating the SNIPS (Spays, Neuters Impact Populations) program, in which veterinarians are donating their time to provide spay and neuter services for rescue organizations at a small cost.
According to Bernadette Orscher, VP of marketing for the network of hospitals Piper Veterinary, this crisis is the consequence of various factors. One of the factors is that for each unaltered female cat, 36 kittens can be born every year. Other factors have played a role in this crisis, like the increased costs for spay and neuter procedures going from $400 to over $1,000 in Connecticut. Economic pressure has also led to an increase in pet abandonments.
'That flywheel of unspayed and neutered animals is just going to continue to raise the number of pet abandonment numbers,' she said. 'The state now has officially recognized the overpopulation issue. So, instead of putting additional strains on town resources, we're trying to help and get ahead of it.'
Although rescues get help through the State Voucher Program to finance these procedures, the number of animals in need have led many rescues to be out of vouchers before the year ended.
With SNIPS, the Lebanon Veterinary Hospital is providing these procedures at a discounted rate, whether they still have these vouchers or not.
In a few numbers, a dog spay cost over $800, which is reduced to $200 with the SNIPS program. For cats, the procedures start at $80. In addition to each surgery, the animals also get two vaccinations at no additional cost.
'The veterinary team is absorbing a significant amount of the cost to offer this to rescues,' she said. 'So, we're trying to make sure we can keep it as inclusive as possible and open as possible.'
Throughout the summer, Piper Veterinary and the Lebanon Veterinary Hospital will be hosting programs to help animals get the medical attention they need to limit overpopulation.
'We're trying to maximize the number of animals that we're able to help and support. And that's best negotiated through rescue groups,' Orscher said.
On June 9, they will have a clinic day with PAWS cat shelter and are still scheduling events to do throughout the summer.
'There's nothing harder in vet medicine than seeing discarded or unwanted pets,' said Dr. Steven Zickmann of Lebanon Veterinary Hospital. 'We have to do better, or it will never stop.'
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