Having kitties nevermore

A veterinarian's nonprofit group offers a low-cost spay/neuter program for feral cats.

By ERIN SULLIVAN, Times Staff Writer
Published February 5, 2008

Head veterinary technician Selena Reilly shaves the ear of a cat while it is sedated for spaying Friday at San Antonio Animal Hospital. A notch cut in its ear will mark it as having been spayed.
	[Brendan Fitterer | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Brendan Fitterer | Times] Joyner-Mattox uses surgical adhesive to close the outer incision after spaying a feral cat captured from a colony in the Trilby area. The cat will be released after surgery. [Brendan Fitterer | Times] Dr. Diana Joyner-Mattox spays a feral cat at San Antonio Animal Hospital on Friday. Her nonprofit, Spay Pasco, is a low-cost spay and neuter program at the animal hospital launched last summer to help reduce the feral cat population.

SAN ANTONIO - It was starting to get dark and cold, a strong wind blowing through the trees and old shed, but the women wouldn't leave. They had flashlights and huge nets and metal traps, laced with good-smelling food. They wanted at least one more, so they put on jackets and waited.

"I see an ear," Carol Comer said, shining a light into the shed's rafters.

They already had two oatmeal-and-chocolate Siamese cats and two black-and-white tuxedo kittens in cages in their vans, covered with soft blankets and given bowls of food. As night closed in, they got one more: a black-and-white tomcat, probably the kittens' father.

The women are volunteers for Spay Pasco, a nonprofit organization that offers low-cost spay and neutering for the animals of people who otherwise couldn't afford it. The fee is $25 per cat, which barely covers the cost of the procedure - not including time spent catching and transporting the kitties.

It was Thursday night at the home of an elderly couple who have been feeding a colony of feral cats. The couple live off a dirt road in Trilby, their land small and quiet and full of kumquat, grapefruit and orange trees and rusting tractors. They don't have much money, but the cats were hungry so they've been feeding them dry food. They aren't spry enough to trap the cats to bring them to a veterinarian's office to get them fixed - not that they could afford it, anyway. The cost for these surgeries can range from $90 to hundreds of dollars, depending on where you go.

A friend contacted Spay Pasco to see if it could help. And it could - though normally, people are asked to trap the cats themselves and bring them in for surgery.

These volunteers work and have busy lives, but they care about reducing the feral cat population and making sure these kitties are healthy.

Comer, a dog trainer, drove from her home in Brooksville to Trilby to catch these cats. Trapping feral cats is not easy. One time, she tried to catch a male cat outside her house so she could get him neutered. The first night, she caught a raccoon. The second night, she caught her own cat three times he couldn't stay away from the canned food, which he normally doesn't get.

"On the third night, I finally got that tomcat," Comer said.

At the Trilby house, after hours of enticing the kitties with canned food and sardines, they captured five. A trip back that night got one more. They aren't giving up on the other cats who live there, and will keep trying.

The cats were taken to the San Antonio Animal Hospital and spayed or neutered Friday morning. They also were dewormed and given rabies shots. The cats' stitches will dissolve with time. Soon they will be released back on the couple's land. Most feral cats cannot be adopted - they've grown up wild, with a distrust of people.

Spay Pasco has been an idea in Dr. Diana Joyner-Mattox's mind for a few years, but it became a reality last summer. It is still gaining momentum and has about 10 volunteers. At the moment, Spay Pasco is focusing on reducing the feral cat population on the eastern side of Pasco County. Later, it will include cats and dogs across the county and will work toward legislation aimed at getting the stray animal population to zero.

More than 10,000 cats and dogs are euthanized in Pasco County each year because there is no place for them, said Joyner-Mattox, of the San Antonio Animal Hospital and founder of Spay Pasco.

"I don't have all the time in the world. I don't have all the money in the world," Joyner-Mattox said. "But I know I can make a little bit of difference here."

Her long-term goal is for Pasco County to never have to euthanize healthy animals just because they don't have a home. Instead of focusing on adoption, Joyner-Mattox is going to the source: making sure animals can't have the litters of babies that are unwanted and not cared for. Spay Pasco was recently approved by the state as a nonprofit, so money donated to the cause is tax-deductible. The organization is looking for an executive director, who will organize outreach projects, advertise, network, apply for grants, do the scheduling, create coalitions with other agencies and do other work with Spay Pasco.

Joyner-Mattox most likely will pay the executive director's salary from her own pocket until the organization gets going and can pay it.

But if that's what it takes, she's going to do it.

"We are euthanizing these animals as a convenience," Joyner-Mattox said. "And that is not acceptable."

Erin Sullivan can be reached at esullivan@sptimes.com or (813) 909-4609.

Spay Pasco

For more information about this organization or to report a feral cat colony, call (352) 585-6205.

If you would like to donate money, write checks out to Spay Pasco and send them to P.O. Box 237, San Antonio, FL 33576.

Or drop checks off at the San Antonio Animal Hospital, which is 2.6 miles east of Interstate 75 at 32347 State Road 52. The phone number is (352) 588-2132. The hospital's Web site is sanantoniovets.com.

[Last modified February 4, 2008, 21:28:09]