June 26, 2008

A new non-profit facility is offering low-cost spaying and neutering procedures for dogs and cats, the goal being to reduce the number of stray and abandoned animals by means other than euthanasia. The Alabama Spay/Neuter Clinic in Irondale will provide services to animal rescue organizations and shelters as well as individual pet owners. It is not a full-service veterinary facility; sterilization and any necessary rabies vaccinations are the only services offered. Though a permanent, 8,500-square-foot building with four surgical rooms is under construction, services are now available in two temporary operating rooms inside the clinic’s double-wide trailer.

“We are in the high-volume spay/neuter business,” explains clinic director Mark Nelson. “The only way we can ever hope to come close to adopting out all the healthy animals that are coming into shelters is to drastically reduce the number of animals coming into shelters. Right now, about one out of ten healthy animals are adopted out. There are just not enough homes . . . The only way you can stop the overflow in shelters and the subsequent euthanasia of healthy animals is through an aggressive, high-volume spay/neutering program, and the only way you can do that is by having very aggressive pricing.”

The clinic currently has one full-time medical team that can perform 30 surgeries per day. The facility is open Monday through Friday, and appointments are requested. It is modeled on services offered by the Humane Alliance based in Asheville, North Carolina, which has spayed or neutered more than 200,000 animals since 1994. “The Humane Alliance is the best that I’ve seen at doing this,” says Nelson. “They have something called the ‘national spay/neuter response team,’ kind of a wing of Humane Alliance. They actually go in and help train veterinary teams in other clinics on the best, most current procedures for doing high-volume spay/neuters. The Humane Alliance helps nurture organizations such as ours. They’ve helped open between 30 and 40 spay/neuter clinics around the country the last three years . . . They’re a non-profit as well, but for lack of a better description, it’s almost like a franchise.”

The Alabama Spay/Neuter Clinic will make available pediatric spay/neutering procedures, with a minimum weight and age requirement of two pounds and two months for healthy animals. Though some veterinarians may disagree with the practice of sterilizing very young animals, Nelson says that doing so significantly decreases the chances of having certain types of cancers in a pet. “Say a female dog never has a litter of puppies, her chances of having breast cancer is almost zero,” Nelson explains. “If they have one litter of puppies, it increases maybe twofold. After two litters, it really doesn’t matter. The same with male dogs with testicular cancer.”

The Greater Birmingham Humane Society (GBHS) also practices pediatric spay/neutering. “Until we don’t have any unwanted animals, I can’t think of a better way to do it,” says Jacque Meyer, the GBHS executive director. “And the mortality rate is very, very low with pubescent spays and neuters.”

Meyer is excited about the clinic. “I think it’s the greatest thing to hit Jefferson County. We need one in every city. They need to put me out of business.” &

The Alabama Spay/Neuter Clinic, 956-0012, www.alabamaspayneuterclinic.com, is located at 2721 Crestwood Boulevard, across the street from the Irondale Post Office.