Recently in spay and netuer 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.

It's a busy weekend for pet-related events. We've posted about these events previously, but as a reminder here's what's going on:

• America's Family Pet Expo starts today and runs through Sunday (4/15-17) at the Orange County Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday; and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Among the local rescue groups that will have booths are Animals Rule (San Pedro) and the Peter Zippi Fund for Animals (Hermosa Beach). Look for them and stop to say hi. Tickets are $12 general admission.

• A Wilmington church, In His Power Christian Center, will sponsor a community "Pack Walk"  from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday (4/16) to  raise awareness for spaying or neutering your pets. Walkers meet at the church, 602 Broad Ave., and will walk to Pacific Coast Highway and Avalon Boulevard. So leash up your dog(s) and join them to "walk for a cause."

• A pet adoption fair and community barbecue will be presented from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday (4/15) at the Silverado Senior Living facility (for Alzheimer's patients), 514 N. Prospect Ave., Redondo Beach. There also will be information about the facility's pet therapy program.

• And for those of you who have followed the saga of Sweet William, the gentle, one-eyed pit bull who found happiness with a loving Torrance family, you can stop by to offer your moral support and encouragement from 1-3 p.m. Saturday (1/16) at the Petco store in the Crossroads shopping center (at Crenshaw and Lomita boulevards in Torrance). Sweet William has been undergoing cancer treatments and would love to receive some pats on the head and hugs. His family would appreciate it as well, and it would give them a chance to meet those of you have been following the story and rooting for Sweet William.

And don't forget all the regular pet adoptions this weekend sponsored by our South Bay and Harbor Area rescue groups. Most of the local pet stores usually feature weekend adoptions by these hard-working nonprofits.

So enjoy the weekend! And email me your photos if you get to any of these events, we'd be glad to post them on the blog next week.

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


 

We received a reminder today about the state's new spay-neuter car license plates that will be produced -- but only if proponents sell 7,500 of them in pre-orders by June. So far, only 1,500 have been sold.

You can learn more and pre-order the plates online.

A story in today's Daily Breeze chronicles problems with the city's spay-neuter voucher program.

Meanwhile, low-cost vaccines and sterilization surgeries continue to be available at the Harbor Area Animal Care Center's Clinico at 957 N. Gaffey St., San Pedro.

 

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.

 

 

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."

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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?

 

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