The folks at ChattaNeuter Spay Neuter Clinic are fixin' to celebrate after passing a major milestone.
The nonprofit organization announced Monday it has provided more than 20,000 spay or neuter surgeries on dogs and cats since its launch about three years ago.
"It's due to a lot of hard work and commitment from our staff ... and we wouldn't have been able to do this without generous donations from the community and grant funding," said Stefanie Douglass, the clinic's director.
The nine-person staff can now perform about 35 surgeries a day, she said, and through various funding sources including grants, large donations and individual donors, ChattaNeuter is able to offer services to people at reduced prices, making it easier to keep their beloved pets safe while preventing problems like overpopulation that is often addressed by shelters that must euthanize animals that aren't adopted.
Spaying and neutering has plenty of positives aside from preventing overpopulation, Douglass said. Animals that have undergone the surgery tend to live longer, they tend to be better behaved, and they don't run away from home as much.
"People are starting to understand it's more beneficial to their [pets'] health," she said.
Douglass said that hitting 20,000 came a lot quicker than she expected, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done.
"We're just trying to help people spay and neuter their animals and stop the overpopulation of unwanted litters that are flooding the shelters. Twenty-thousands animals is a bunch, but we still have a long ways to go," she said. "It's helping, but it's just a work in progress."
Someone who knows exactly what Douglass is talking about is McKamey Animal Center Executive Director Jamie McAloon, who has spent more than three decades as the director of an animal shelter.
"Here at McKamey alone, we took in 6,875 animals [last year]. ... I think [the Humane Educational Society] took in about 5,000, I can't speak to that exactly, but ... just between the two of us, you're talking about 12,000 animals in one community. It could be even higher, I mean you have the Pet Placement Center, you have all the rescues that are taking in animals. I mean, it's staggering," she said. " ... It is overwhelming, especially here in Chattanooga, because we get these calls from all the surrounding communities to try and bring animals in here."
Clinics like ChattaNeuter and McKamey are doing the best they can in the face of tough odds, she added, and they're making a definite impact.
"[Spaying and neutering] is the most effective way to address overpopulation," she said.
Last year, McKamey spayed or neutered a total of 6,668 animals. Since 2009, the shelter has performed the surgery on more than 40,000 animals in total.
Grants and donations from big donors and corporate sponsors go a long way to helping area clinics keep up with the demand, McAloon said.
A grant from the Petco Foundation this summer has allowed McKamey to offer free spay and neuter services to people in seven area codes in an around Chattanooga, she said.
Meanwhile, a tectonic cultural shift has virtually erased the stigma of adopting shelter animals, making it easier to find homes for dogs and cats in need, she said.
"It's been a culture shift, for sure," McAloon said. "Because, back in the day, you didn't adopt from animal shelters. Now, it's popular to adopt from animal shelters. Everybody's got a rescue dog, everybody's got a shelter dog.
"The millennial generation has been the greatest thing that ever happened to animals, because they are awesome," she said. "It's their animals first. They volunteer. They [donate] money where the [need] is the greatest. ... That's been a boom for animal shelters, for sure."
For more information on ChattaNeuter, visit chattaneuter.org.
Colin M. Stewart can be reached at (423) 757-6366 or cstewart@timesfreepress.com.