Catch-Up Caturday

The coronavirus pandemic forced Napa Humane’s spay/neuter Clinic to “paws” operations temporarily in March this year, just as cats were starting to go into heat. We resumed surgeries for the shelter and local rescue groups in mid-May (and for the public in June), but just those few short months without our low-cost spay/neuter services resulted in a whole new generation of unwanted kittens – making animal homelessness exponentially harder to solve!

On Saturday, August 22, our Clinic worked overtime to catch up a bit thanks to a $2,500 grant investment from the Petco Foundation, which funded a day of spay/neuter surgeries dedicated to felines – also called a “Caturday”. This latest Caturday stopped the cycle of needless suffering for more than a dozen kittens born into an uncertain future while our Clinic couldn’t operate.

But here’s the thing: We had to spend an entire extra day in surgery because of a couple of cats who weren’t spayed. 

Every female cat left unspayed with access to a mate turns into 12 cats by the end of the year. Unless they are spayed, her female kittens will carry on with two litters of their own every year. After five years of this, you’ve got almost 12,000 cats – far more than our shelters or rescue groups can humanely handle, no matter how much they fundraise or expand their operations!

The only way to stop animal homelessness is through spay/neuter: “fixing” the problem before it happens.

But Napa Humane is the only provider of low-cost spay/neuter surgeries in Napa County, Solano County, and Lake County. When we can’t operate our Clinic, animal suffering for our entire region increases exponentially. One Caturday isn’t enough to solve our pet overpopulation problem in the area, but with the $2,500 grant investment by the Petco Foundation will help reduce the number of pets from entering our local shelters and rescues. You can learn more about the Petco Foundation and their lifesaving initiatives, here. This support is a step in the right direction for “fixing” pet overpopulation and suffering in our community.

But the pandemic and wildfires have had a tremendous economic impact on this area this year, and the need for our services is higher than it’s ever been. Can you help us today in our fight against animal homelessness?

Photography by: Seymour & McIntosh