Recently in spay and netuer Category

Dr. Stacy Fuchino of the PV Village Pet Clinic has teamed up with Purrfect Partners to offer a free spay-and-neuter clinic Sunday (Oct. 25) morning at the clinic, 201 Palos Verdes Blvd., Redondo Beach.

The event is geared for free-roaming cats and provides not only the surgery but also flea treatments. It is free for all caregivers and trappers of feral colonies. Donations, however, are welcome.

Reservations are required: Call 310-373-1585. Drop off time is between 7 and 8 a.m., with pickup between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

Organizers hope to offer more of the clinics in the future. This is the first.  

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."

**************************************************************************

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?

Here's a novel program I'd not heard about before.

It's called ZAPP -- which stands for Zero Additional Pup-ulation Project -- and it takes aim at reducing the numbers of stray dogs and cats on the streets in Baja.

So here's the deal: ZAPP runs a "Shoes for Spays" program and here's how it works:

Funds are currently unavailable in this region as the animal overpopulation crisis continues to grow. ... By seeking out "shoe addicts" and animal lovers alike who want to turn "no longer gently-worn to new shoes" into funds for spay/neuter clinics, ZAPP takes donated men's and women's shoes, details them, and resells them out of their eBay Shoe Store.

"Funds are unavailable in Mexico for a project such as this," said ZAPP founder Steven Forman. "We need major support to make this initiative possible and we hope that people across the U.S. will join us by donating their unwanted, re-sellable shoes so that we can turn them into spay/neuter surgeries."

This idea has (already) allowed San Felipe (in Baja) to spay and neuter more than 5,500 animals to date, at a rate of 100 per month, and a cost of $30 per surgery to ZAPP.

ZAPP needs gently worn to new shoes donated to help spay and neuter as many dogs and cats as possible in San Felipe, where 92 percent of the existing animals live on the streets.

Send shoe donations to:

ZAPP

Attn: Shoes for Spays

95 East Highway 98

Calexico, CA 92232

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

Daily Breeze reporter Nick Green reports today that the city of Torrance will consider a spay-neuter ordinance for cats and dogs at the next City Council meeting on May 7.

The decision came after Debra Corwin, founder of the Torrance-based rescue group Purrfect Partners, appeared before the city's environmental Quality Commission to lobby for the proposal. Earlier this month, she even showed up with three tiny kittens, their eyes still unopened, that she said were rescued from a city facility on Madrona Avenue.

"I said, 'I know this is inappropriate, but look at these," she recalled. "What I emphasized was I was the 10th (rescue) group they had called -- no one could take them in. I shouldn't even be taking them in."

Homeless animals, she said, were "an epidemic beofre the economy changed." And now? "It's worse."

Our story online so far is drawing some lively comments from readers (you can find them -- and add your own -- at the bottom of the story on the link provided above): 

NAB wrote: "If the problem is stray animals (feral cats) reproducing, how will a mandatory spay and neuter law solve this problem? Animals can't read and so they will not know that they need to be fixed in order to be compliant with the law. The vast majority of owned animals are already spayed and netuered."

Torrance Mom wrote: "Since feral cats are the main problem, why not set up low-cost or free programs for rescue groups and others to trap these cats and have them fixed and released? Solves the over-population of cats, keeps the rodent population under control of the cats, and everybody's happy. (Well, except the cat-haters.)"

Anthony had this to say: "Deborah means well, but all you have to do to see that mandatory spay and neuter does not work is look to Los angeles, where intakes and euthanasia have skyrocketed since the law was passed ... By the way, the clinic on PCH is no longer low-cost, and the clinic at the San Pedro shelter is not open."

  You've got to love city government.

After pushing the importance of spaying and neutering your pets for years now -- going so far as to even make it the law -- the city of L.A. goes and cancels the voucher program that allows low-income cat and dog owners to help pay for the surgeries. In a year in which the muncipal government is financially strapped, it seems there may be no more money to continue the program.

But two L.A. City Councilmen, Dennis Zine and Eric Garcetti, are already pushing for restoration of the program.

"In the long run, the cost of pet overpopulation will significantly outweigh that of the spay-neuter coupons," Chris Olsen, an aide to Zine, wrote in a letter to the city's Spay and Neuter Advisory Committee.

"(Zine) will introduce a motion that directs Animal Services to reinstate the program immediately," Olsen wrote.

.....Officials said they cut the program as part of a plan to save about $150,000.

Read the rest of Rick Orlov's story in the Daily Breeze.

Purrfect Partners , a nonprofit cat rescue and adoption group, is holding a yard sale fundraiser to help pay for spay and neuter programs.

It will take place at 4716 W. Bulova St. in Torrance from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Proceeds go to neuter and spay programs.

  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 

Some of you will love hearing this -- others, not so much.

California's proposed mandatory spay and neuter bill (AB 1634)  has been defeated following amendments that led even its staunch backers (the California Taxpayers for Safe and Healthy Pets) to back away from full-hearted support in the end. "We didn't want it to pass," said supporter Judie Mancuso. "It's unfortunate when you can't support your own bill."

The bill had widespread support from animal shelter directors, animal rights and rescue groups, in addition to the SPCA and humane societies -- all battling the rising tide of pet overpopulation that so tragically leads to a last-resort solution at animal shelters, euthanasia of healthy but unwanted pets.

Opposing the measure have been dog owners involved in breeding and training show breeds, guide and service dogs, search-and-rescue dogs, police dogs, hunting dogs and working herding and livestock guardian dogs.

I've had friends on both sides of this legislation -- dedicated rescue and shelter volunteers who supported it and equally dedicated members of the South Bay Kennel Club and those with working herding dogs who were opposed.

Here are links to supporters' fact sheets  and the AKC's most recent press release.

So what's next? Mancuso, who has been helping to shepherd the bill through the legislature, said attentions will now be turned to helping implement Los Angeles' city spay and neuter law that takes effect Oct. 1. And, she added, we can expect another stab at a statewide bill during the next legislative session.

Meanwhile, the push to establish specialized license plates to support the spay and neuter cause in California is continuing through a separate process (it was not connected directly to AB 1634 as we earlier reported). State Sen. Alex Padilla is spearheading that drive and Mancuso said discussions are ongoing with the DMV about what will be required. The plates are expected to be available by late 2008 or early 2009, with 75 percent of the motorist fees going toward county programs that help fund low-cost spay and neuter efforts.

A contest is being considered to come up with the artwork and message for the plates, she said. Below are a few samples from other states (including Arizona and Illinois, the home states of our two 2008 presidential candidates -- mentioned only because we're all about politics this week in the media and I couldn't find a pet or dog connection to the convention other than some stories about the protesters that came up on google searches). 

Others samples can be seen at the Doris Day web page: