Montgomery group provides spay, neuter transport service to Lee County

LEE CO., AL (WSFA) - The Alabama Animal Alliance's Spay/Neuter Clinic treats cats and dogs that need be fixed every week, but on the second Tuesday of every month, the clinic makes an effort to reach out to pet owners in Lee County who need the service.

Pet owners in that area, who have made an appointment, can meet staff members in a designated parking lot in Auburn at 7 a.m. to give their cats and dogs over to the clinic, and they get them back the same day at 4:45 p.m.

Rachel Tears, the executive director for the Alabama Animal Alliance, said a donor in Lee County reached out to her when the group started in 2007 to see what she would need to be able to provide the transport service.

"I told the donor we need a truck and it needs to have AC and heat," Tears said. "I said it needed to have safety cages for the pets. She made that possible." Tears said her clients include Auburn students, people commuting from Georgia, and Tuskegee residents.

The transportation from Auburn costs an additional $10 to the normal prices of the procedures, which can be found at http://alabamaspayneuter.com/fix/.

Tears said her group is able to charge a fraction of the price that traditional veterinarian offices charge for the procedure because it is all they focus on.

"Our singular goal is to just fix those animals so they don't produce unwanted puppies and kittens," Tears said.

Tears said the issue is a combination of shelters trying to tackle an issue that's too large for them to be able to handle alone and pet owners being unaware of how quickly their animals can reproduce. The product of these two issues is an overpopulation in shelters, with not enough people coming to adopt them.

She said this leaves hundreds of thousands of animals in Alabama to be euthanized each year.

"On top of that, the procedure helps animals be less aggressive and more social," Tears stated. "It makes for happier and healthier pets all around."

Tears said the group works year-round to collect enough donations to supplement its costs. The next event the clinic is hosting will be a dog wash on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Pet owners can bring their pets out to get more information about the spay and neuter procedure and have their pet washed for $10.

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