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Their Work
Each year, Alabama animal shelters euthanize over 150,000 unwanted dogs and cats. Over 75% of these are healthy adoptable animals desperately waiting out their days in a cage hoping to find a loving home. While the shelters are overpopulated, so are the streets in many of the communities.
Recently, we were alerted to a particularly severe and fast-growing situation happening in a small town in the Walker County, known as Parrish. Hundreds of dogs were found roaming in the streets in various states of starvation, debilitated health and obvious critical injuries. Unfortunately, lower income communities cannot always afford to care for their animals, let alone get them spayed or neutered. Typically, once a situation as such becomes out of control, an absence of compassion to the perpetual begging for food and overall suffering becomes a way of life. Overwhelmed authorities have been trying to solve the problem by inhumane killings and fines for feeding the neglected strays.
The fate of these animals was the incentive for the creation of the Alabama Spay/Neuter. Alabama Spay/Neuter’s Board of Directors felt that opening a facility that provided high quality; high-volume, low-cost spay/neutering was the only sustainable way to end the overpopulation of dogs and cats in Central Alabama.
The facility serves 13 counties and houses four surgery suites with a capacity to do well over 100 high-quality spay/neuter surgeries per day by licensed veterinarians. Moreover, they provide free transportation to and from specific pick-up points on a regularly scheduled basis.
The clinic is also at the forefront of spay/neuter programs targeting free-roaming and feral cats, as well as T-N-R (trap, neuter and release) training.
We quickly got in touch with a representative from Alabama Spay/Neuter who was more than excited to receive our help with a grant through our Shelter Programs in order to help spay and neuter the animals of Walker County. They still need your help, until the population can get under control, animals continue to suffer needlessly and painfully, please consider supporting their tireless work.
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The Alabama Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners declined on October 10th, 2012 to approve a rule that would have limited nonprofit groups’ access to veterinarians and veterinary services and thereby cease operations. We are very pleased to hear the outcome and thank all those who supported their efforts.