Recently in pet overpopulation Category

The SNP LA -- Spay Neuter Project of Los Angeles, formerly called Clinico -- will host an open house  from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday (Feb. 8) at its San Pedro site.

Door prizes, refreshments and a tour of the facility will be offered to the public.

SNP LA provides spay neuter services that are affordable and accessible to all pet owners in the Los Angeles area in an effort to create an environment in which animal shelters no longer rely on euthanizing animals as a way of controlling pet population.

The open house -- along with others at the group's Pico Rivera and Van Nuys facilities -- is offered in conjunction with the 18th annual Spay Day which is Feb. 28. Found Animals is assisting in the event.

The San Pedro clinic is located on the grounds of the Harbor Area Animal Care Center, 957 N. Gaffey St., San Pedro.

For more information, check out the SNP LA website. Or call 1-888-WE-SPAY-LA.

In His Power Christian Center, a church that has congregations in Wilmington and Carson, will sponsor a community "Pack Walk for a Cause" from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday (April 16)  to encourage people to spay and neuter their pets.

From Dawn at the church:

In His Power Christian Center is excited to announce our Noah's Barkk Ministry is doing a Pack Walk to raise awareness on spay and neuter. This is a free event and we will be walking with our dogs from In His Power Christian Center, 602 Broad Ave., Wilmington, to PCH and Avalon, sharing information with everyone.

All dogs are welcome, big or small. Come join us to be a blessing to all of God's creatures.

"Those who do what is right take good care of their animals. But the kindest acts of those who do wrong are mean." Proverbs 12:10

I've always liked that particular verse myself. In another translation (New American Standard), it reads: "A righteous man has regard for the life of his beast, but the compassion of the wicked is cruel."

So check it out and let us know how it goes. We're always happy to post photos from these events if participants would like to email them to us: donna.littlejohn@dailybreeze.com


 

A new candidate has been tapped to head of Los Angeles Animal Services. But she's already coming under fire.

After years of effort, California this week launched the state's newest specialty license plate -- CA Spay and Neuter.

The Califonria Veterinary Medical Board joined forces with the California Spay and Neuter License Plate Fund to sponsor the program. Proceeds will provide funding for free and low-cost spay and neuter surgery programs across California and also will bring attention to the problem of homeless pets.

It's estimated that 1 million pets enter the state's animal shelters each year with more than half of them (500,000) being euthanized.

The new plates feature original artwork created and donated by actor/artist Pierce Brosnan.

They will be produced and issued once an initial 7,500 pre-paid applications have been collected. Go to www.CASpayPlate.com.

 

Actors and Others for Animals will distribute vouchers for free spay/neuter surgeries for 400 cats belonging to Los Angeles County residents beginning today. Among the clinics taking part is Clinico in San Pedro.

It's all part of the 16th annual Spay Day, a yearly campaign of The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International.

"We firmly believe that the only way to solve the pet overpopulation problem and end the killing of so many unwanted animals is through spay and netuer," said Actors and Others for animals President JoAnne Worley.

The program is sponsored by the PETCO Foundation and supported in part by a grant from the California Community Foundation. From today through March 9, L.A. County residents can register online at www.actorsandothers.com to receive a voucher that will allow them to have their cats spayed or netuered without charge Surgeries must be completed by April 20 and there is a limit of three vouchers per household.

Participating veterinary clinics are:

• Animal Clinic of La Mirada
• Clinico/San Pedro
• Crenshaw dog & Cat Hospital
• Fix Nation
• Gateway Animal Hospital
• Golden State Humane Long Beach
• Lynwood Animal Hospital
• Spay & Neuter Clinic of Simi Valley
• Valley Vet Hospital/San Gabriel

A news conference announcing other new spay/neuter initiatives for L.A. residents that will benefit both cats and dogs -- thanks to a grant from Found Animals Foundation -- will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Clinico Harbor Clinic, 957 N. Gaffey St., San Pedro. For more information or to book an appointment go to www.clinico.org or call 310-241-0768.

 

 

West Hollywood is poised to approve an ordinance that would ban the sale of cats and dogs.

People shopping for pets in West Hollywood might soon wonder why there aren't any doggies in the windows anymore.

The city is poised to give final approval to an ordinance that would end sales of dogs and cats as a way to reduce the demand that can lead to inhumane conditions in the breeding industry.

The ordinance was approved on a first reading earlier in the month. If it passes a second reading Tuesday, the law would take effect March 19.

Councilman Jeffrey Prang said the move would strike a blow to puppy mills and other cruel, assembly-line breeding.

"There's so many abandoned animals," said Ivan Merino, a manager at Collar & Leash in West Hollywood. "People keep buying dogs and cats and then after a few months they just dump them."

Update: I received a call after this story ran from Debra Corwin, who operates Purrfect Partners cat rescue in the Sough Bay. She confirmed that this year is proving to be more than a challenge.

"It's more than a strain. The dam has broken," she said of the flood of homeless cats. "It's escalating. It was an epidemic before the economy changed, just ask the people in rescue or your vet."

She advocates more mandatory spay-and-neuter laws for local cities. In the meantime, rescue groups are at a breaking point, she says.

"Everybody is getting very burned out."

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A story in today's Daily Breeze should be read by everyone concerned about what seems to be the still-growing problem of pet overpopulation.

Specifically, the city of Los Angeles is experiencing a huge influx this summer -- especially of cats -- and is having to euthanize healthy animals as a result.

The shelters are so overcrowded that the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services is offering two-for-one cat adoptions to make room for the feline influx.

 

(Above, Adan Lozoya checks the cats in the Harbor Animal Care Center, 957 N. Gaffey St., San Pedro. Photo: Scott Varley/Daily Breeze)

Capt. Daniel Pantoja, who heads up the new harbor shelter (which opened in June 2008) responsible for the Harbor Area, said they're using every space they can to house the kittens and cats that are being brought in. When I spoke to him Tuesday afternoon, the shelter had 104 cats. The problem: The shelter was built with only 24 permanent cat cages and has had to borrow dozens more portable cages to help handle the overflow.

"I'm at capacity and every other shelter is as well," Pantoja said. "We have cats in cages in the hallways, in the lobby, in rooms that are supposed to be for quarantined animals. ... We're using every space we can."

The economy has been the main culprit, according to reporter Dana Bartholomew of our sister paper the Daily News who wrote the story. There has been a surge in abandoned pets since May 2008, when soaring job losses and home foreclosures began fueling an increase in surrendered dogs and cats at city shelters.

But contributing to the situation, Pantoja told me, is the fact that because so many cats are free-roaming -- and do not fall under licensing laws in the city -- it becomes much harder to enforce any kind of spay-and-neuter ordinance on felines.

"How do we enforce (laws) on those stray cats that people feed all the time?" Pantoja said of the ferals that proliferate so quickly. "It starts out with people feeling sorry for the cats, thinking they'll starve to death, but that's not really the case. So they set up feeding stations and then it winds up being a colony and then the colony expands and the cats wind up at the shelter."

For every child that's born, Pantoja said, 45 cats are born. That gives you an idea of how this problem has so quickly spun out of control.

A sad case in point: Jooniper, the cat featured as last week's Pet of the Week in the paper, was euthanized after no one adopted him.

Any thoughts out there on what more can or should be done? How this problem can be more effectively tackled?

In the latest push to help pet owners spay and neuter their pets at affordable prices, Clinico, a nonprofit pet clinic, is now up and running on the grounds of the Harbor Care Animal Center, 957 N. Gaffey St., San Pedro. Appointments are available by calling Clinico at 310-241-0768. Hours are 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays.

City officials and shelter volunteers turned out for Thursday's ribbon-cutting ceremony. (For more details, check out the full Daily Breeze story.)

Also make sure to see Daily Breeze photographer Brad Graverson's online photo gallery from this morning's event. Here are a couple of the shots he took:

 

Here's a new canvas grocery tote designed to promote pet rescue and spread the word about the imporance of spaying and neutering your pets.

Put out by Viva la Revolucion, the tote can also go to the beach. A percentage of sales goes to pet rescue and you can even plug your favorite rescue group by having them imprint it on the bag.

Cost $8.50 (extra charges for personalization).

HT: Barkability

  The deadline is less than a week away for Los Angeles pet owners to comply with a new city law that requires most dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered by the time they are 4 months old. Deadline = Oct. 1.

Exemptions include animals who compete in shows or sporting competitions, dogs in the process of earning agility, carting, herding, protection, rally, hunting, working or other titles; gude, signal or service dogs; law enforcement dogs; and animals for which there are valid breeding permits.

Information on the new law can be found at city's Web site.

Related Post: LA Spay and Neuter