No- and Low-Cost Mobile Vet Vans Provide 'Animal Birth Control' to Alleviate Homeless Animal Crisis

For Immediate Release:
April 1, 2009

Contact:
Debbie Chissell 757-622-7382

Norfolk, Va. -- Tomorrow morning, Chesapeake resident Frank Lucas' dog Cheyenne will become the 50,000th animal to be spayed or neutered by PETA's Spay Neuter Immediately Please (SNIP) and ABC DogDoc teams. In addition to Cheyenne's free spaying surgery, vaccines, and heartworm- and flea-prevention treatments, Lucas will receive a doggie gift basket and a $200 Care-A-Lot gift certificate, courtesy of both PETA and Care-A-Lot:

When:   Thursday, April 2, 11 a.m.

Where:  The PETA SNIP-mobile, outside the Care-A-Lot Pet Supply Store, 1924 Diamond Springs Rd., Virginia Beach

PETA's low-cost spay-and-neuter surgeries have made a huge dent in the number of unwanted dogs and cats who are destroyed in shelters each year because of lack of good homes. The surgeries prevent hundreds of thousands of puppies and kittens from being born into communities that are already bursting at the seams with unwanted animals

Tens of thousands of animals are euthanized by Hampton Roads area shelters each year simply because there aren't enough good homes to go around. Since it was launched in 2001, SNIP and its sister project, DogDoc (which caters to impoverished rural areas and even includes a unique door-to-door transport service) have "fixed" 50,000 cats and dogs, most from low-income households. Without these services, these animals would have contributed to the tragic overpopulation crisis, swelling local animal populations by hundreds of thousands. Taxpayers foot the bill to impound, house, place, and euthanize stray and abandoned animals, so PETA's mobile clinics save taxpayer dollars at the same time that they save lives.

"PETA's mobile clinics operate seven days a week to keep up with the demand for low-cost spay and neuter services," says Director Debbie Chissell. "But it really is a labor of love, because with each surgery comes the satisfaction of knowing that we've spared animals from being born into a world that tragically has no place for them." 

The public is encouraged to call PETA for spay-and-neuter appointments at 757-622-PETA, option 3.

For more information, please visit blog.peta.org.