I am the manager of a non profit Vet Clinic/Shelter. We do a lot of low cost spay neuter. We do not get money from the public in anyway other than the few dollars we make off our clinic & boarding & donations, which are way down thanks to the economy. We have been lucky to offer grants, which cover the spay/neuter with a small co-pay, but it does not cover vaccs. Grants take months to write & wait on & you compete with all the other rescues around the US for them, so they too are far between, Rabies is required by law here if the pet is over 12 weeks, but the other vaccs although highly recommended are not. We are a lot cheaper than the other vets in our area & we are not very popular with them. The other Humane Society here also has a certificate program with local vets but they have a huge amount of donations coming in & they also have a huge thrift shop to help with funding. Between us both you would think we do an excellent job of helping with the overpopulation, but as I go to the Pound each week & get pets right before they are euthanized to add to our shelter, even with all we do the numbers of strays or surrenders & feral cat colonies here are still huge.
If you want an pet , it usually always cheaper to adopt one from your local shelter than a free one from your friend/neighbor/feed store. We provide over $200 services on our cats alone in spay/neuter, all vaccs for a year, dewormed, feleuk-FIV testing, free starter flea prevention & food for cats & kittens that are adopted for $35-$50. And we have a strict adoption application, we dont just give a pet to anyone with the money. We try our best to make sure it is going to a good stable home that will keep it as a furr-ever friend.
I also applaud anyone that tries to rescue an animal. It is sticker shock to find out what it costs to "fix" them. Here the barn cats & hoarders are the biggest problem. The barn cats people dont think about fixing & soon they end up with a huge amount of semi feral kittens. The hoarders, well there are a lot of people that have 20-80 cats running around their place because they didnt fix the first few they got. Soon the cat colony starts branching out to the neighbors or just get dumped & they end up everywhere. If your current pet has offspring, consider what happens to the puppies & kittens you find homes for, if you dont know for sure that they will be fixed when you give them away, they do just add to the population overgrowth.
Most shelters are overcrowded & forced to euthanize. My trips to our local pound to bring pets from our shelter leaves me in tears & mad a humans. I have made the trip hundreds of times, each time I dont think of the 7-10 I save, I think of the 20-50 I leave being left behind to die. And I go home tossing & turning thinking of ways to try to fix it.
Wish I had a solution. We are a throwaway society, simple as that. Some people try to help, but it is hard to keep up with the people that just dont care. If you can help out your local spay/neuter clinic or shelter please do. Some take volunteers, all take donations. It is the only way we all will make a difference.
