Pets  

Posted on Mon, Apr. 21, 2008

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Clinic to neuter, spay for lower fees

BY DIANE MCCARTNEY

The Wichita Eagle

Jolene Sanders lives on $650 a month and has trouble making ends meet, but she can't help rescuing homeless cats and dogs that she finds around her Wichita trailer court.

"I have a big heart for animals," said Sanders, 55, who lives with one dog and four cats.

She has three female cats that need to be spayed, but she can't afford the surgeries. "I called around and the cheapest (price) I could find was $120," she said.

A new spay and neuter clinic set to open in Wichita this summer will offer the surgeries for $30 for cats and $40 for dogs for people like Sanders who meet low-income guidelines.

Sanders paid to have her male cat, Rocky, neutered after he fathered a fourth litter of kittens last year.

"I just couldn't handle having litter after litter," said Sanders, who spends $50 a month on pet food and kitty litter. When the clinic opens July 1 at 317 S. Hydraulic, she hopes to get the females spayed.

Shocking numbers

The idea for the clinic, and the founding of a nonprofit corporation, Spay/Neuter Kansas Inc., came about after a group of animal lovers decided something needed to be done about Wichita's pet overpopulation problem.

One of the group members was Bill Skaer, a Wichita veterinarian who has been in practice for almost 40 years and has seen his share of unwanted animals.

Even Skaer was shocked when he realized the number of animals being euthanized each year at the Wichita Animal Shelter and the Kansas Humane Society.

In 2007, the two shelters took in 24,882 dogs and cats. While 1,893 were reclaimed by their owners, 16,511 -- 66 percent -- were euthanized.

The euthanasia rate in Sedgwick County -- 35.1 pets per 1,000 people -- is more than twice the national average.

"Everything that everyone has been doing so far -- the Humane Society, the animal shelter, the veterinary community and the rescue groups -- just isn't getting the job done," he said.

The key to reducing the number of animals euthanized, Skaer said, is reducing the number that are born.

A Tulsa model

The Wichita clinic is being modeled after a similar operation in Tulsa called Spay Oklahoma, which spays and neuters 6,000 animals a year.

Nancy Atwater helped form that clinic in 2004 after she and a neighbor "got tired of picking up dogs along the road."

They looked into what other communities had done to fight pet overpopulation and found that "high-volume spay-neuter, specifically for low-income families, was what had the biggest impact," Atwater said.

"High-volume" means a clinic must perform surgeries on at least 35 animals a day, more than one day a week, Atwater said. "You really have to do (that many) to get the numbers to start to decline," she said.

And income screening ensures that the services are going to the people who need them, Atwater said. Clients who come to the Tulsa clinic -- and who will come to the new Wichita one -- must show proof that their income is $40,000 or less a year.

Income screening keeps local veterinarians happy, Atwater said, because some think a low-cost clinic "is going to be stealing business from them."

"The reality is, these families can't afford veterinary services," she said.

"Very few of the families we see have ever been to a vet."

One success story

In Bristow, Okla., a town of 4,400 people about 30 miles from Tulsa, Spay Oklahoma has made a noticeable dent in the numbers of unwanted pets.

Veterinarian Bill Mitchell, who performs surgeries two days a month at the Tulsa operation, said he was skeptical at first but has seen the positive impact such a program can have.

Three years ago, "before we started doing this, our euthanasia rate was probably 50 to 60 animals a month," Mitchell said. "We cut it by at least three-quarters."

The program has been so successful, he said, the Bristow animal shelter didn't have any puppies or kittens to offer for adoption last spring.

Unfortunately, a lack of baby animals is not a problem in Wichita. Thirty-five percent of the dogs and 60 percent of the cats taken in at the Kansas Humane Society in 2007 were 6 months or younger.

Donations needed

Plans for the Wichita clinic are still being finalized, but Skaer thinks it will be open three days a week, plus one Saturday a month.

Clients will have to show proof of income -- a check stub, Social Security statement or Medicaid card -- Skaer said, and those who can't afford to pay even the $30 or $40 for spays and neuters can apply to a fund that will take care of the costs.

The board is in the process of hiring a veterinarian and support staff, and the building is being remodeled and equipped for surgeries.

The clinic will use state-of-the-art anesthesia and veterinary practices, Skaer said, but otherwise will be "a very modest, low-budget operation."

The clinic's budget for the first year, including start-up costs, is about $250,000, one fifth of which has been contributed by the Spay/Neuter Kansas board.

Spay-neuter programs don't just help animals, said Ruth Steinbarger of Bristow, who helped start Spay Oklahoma and similar programs in that state.

They also help the good-hearted people who are making sacrifices to help animals.

Sixty percent of the clients served by Tulsa's program, she said, are people like Jolene Sanders who have taken in strays and made them part of their family.

When Wichita's spay-neuter clinic opens, Sanders hopes to be one of the first clients in line. She's tired of living with three female cats that come into season every three weeks between March and September.

"I'm going to start with my youngest, 'cause she's the noisiest," Sanders said, referring to Buttons, a 1-year-old cat she rescued from last summer's floods. "Have you ever heard a cat in heat?"

Reach Diane McCartney at 316-268-6593 or dmccartney@wichitaeagle.com.