Montrose - Daily Press

Erica Lewis Kennedy

Daily Press Staff Writer

MONTROSE — With a snip, snip here and a snip, snip there Montrose is on its way to having a few thousand less feral cats and dogs in its future animal population. The City of Montrose Animal Shelter is hosting a sterilization clinic today and tomorrow open to all interested pet owners. The shelter staff brought in Dr. Jeff Young, of his Denver based Planned Pethood Plus clinic, to perform low-cost spay and neuter surgeries on cats and dogs.

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“The important aspect of a clinic like this is that we are trying to control overpopulation numbers,” Young said. “Euthanasia is the number one killer of pets. Every year, in and out, we have to put so many animals to sleep. But if we can stop the problem before it exists, we will all be much better off.”

Pet overpopulation is a huge problem in this country, and according to the Humane Society of the United States, the average feral cat can produce up to 18 kittens in one year and a dog can produce 20 puppies. Using these estimates, it takes only six years for a dog to produce hundreds of puppies and seven years for cats to do the same thing.

Young has completed more than 140,000 spay and neuter procedures in his career since becoming active in 1990. He owns and operates his Denver clinic on some basic principals.

“We have one of, if not the busiest clinic in the state of Colorado. I provide low-cost service,” Young said. “Prices on the Front Range are absolutely outrageous. I take the McDonalds approach and believe in volume rather than charging tons of money. The more customers I serve, the fewer feral animals in the future.”

Young takes on international veterinarian interns to train on doing high-volume spay/neuters while keeping the animals healthy. He teaches and lectures globally and also owns clinics in Slovakia, Mexico and the Philippines.

“In our Denver clinic we will not treat pets who have not been spayed or neutered,” Young said. “I can count the exceptions over the years on one hand that were true pure breds. ... There is a lot of misinformation about the animal population.”

Young is the only vet at this clinic and he hopes to complete 60 procedures each day. He travels all over Colorado performing procedures and last week he traveled to Brush and in two days performed 216 procedures.

Shelter Office Manager Kari Kishiyama said the shelter has hosted other spay and neuter clinics and hopes to host more this year — they are planning one for late spring, perhaps in May.

“We would love to hold one every month or every other month,” Kishiyama said. “We started holding the clinics to help out the community. Anybody can come in with their pets.” Kishiyama said the Animal Shelter sees a huge problem every spring when litters of puppies and kittens arrive nearly every day.

“We get litters with the mother and those that were just abandoned,” she said. “We end up bottle feeding them.”

The animal shelter offers Young the workspace for his mobile clinic and in return will sterilize all the adoptable animals at the shelter free of charge.

“Dr. Young likes animals to be 8-weeks-old and above to perform surgery,” she added. “He also offers for local veterinarians to come and participate or simply observe for training.”

Clinic service costs are as follows: for a cat spay is $40 and neuter $30. For dogs a spay up to 80 lbs. is $55 and neuter is $45. Each additional 10 lbs will cost $10. All feral cats will be spayed or neutered for $20. No additional charges, such as those for dogs in heat, will be added to your bill.

In 2006, the animal shelter held four clinics like the one today and were able to spay/neuter 238 animals. From 10 a.m. to noon on each day there will also be a walk-in vaccination clinic. There is a $12 fee for the distemper combo shot for cats and $12 for rabies. The rabies vaccination offered is valid for one year.

For more information, contact the shelter at 240-1487.

For more information about Young’s Denver clinic visit: www.plannedpethoodplus.com

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