Today is World Spay Day, which people celebrate by leafleting, assisting at low-cost spay-and-neuter clinics, and doing their part to combat the animal-homelessness crisis. Of course, for PETA's Mobile Clinics Division, every day is Spay Day. The clinics travel to underserved areas surrounding PETA's Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters seven days a week to provide low-cost spay and neuter surgeries and vaccinations—and we even supply transportation to and from appointments when necessary.

Here are just a handful of the animals the clinics have helped recently:

1. 

Tyga lives indoors, but she had somehow managed to become pregnant before her PETA clinic appointment. Still, we were able to spay her in time, before she could bring more puppies into a world already overwhelmed with animals who need good homes.

2. 

We aren't sure who's more adorable, Mese or her human. But one thing's certain: They are both definitely happier since we drove Mese to our clinic and spayed her for free.

3. 

Puddin' is just as sweet as his name would suggest, and making sure that he got neutered was pretty sweet, too.

4. 

We spayed Lexie's sister in December, and that dog's guardians recommended our services so highly that we ended up sterilizing the entire litter!

So far this year, the clinics have spayed or neutered 1,672 animals! Considering that one unaltered female dog and her offspring and their offspring and their offspring, etc., can produce 67,000 puppies in just six years and that in seven years, one unaltered female cat and her offspring, etc., can produce 370,000 kittens, we were able to prevent hundreds of thousands of unwanted animals from being born.

Spay Day is the perfect opportunity to sponsor a surgery at one of PETA's clinics or learn how you can volunteer to help get animals in your own area spayed and neutered—and help make every day Spay Day. 

freedomblogging / CC

 

It's Spay Day—do you know where your neighbors' cats and dogs are? Or, more importantly, do you know whether they have been spayed or neutered? I do. In fact, one of them is here with me as I write this (and he seems to think that I need to write "#%^)tfr*^lpxc%$#?.>l" here instead of a period). Sam is one of nearly a dozen cats who once belonged to one of my neighbors. The cats came to my attention when I noticed the "free kittens" sign outside my neighbor's house.

I called the number on the sign and offered to get the mama kitty and the kittens spayed and neutered. Rather than being offended, as I feared she might be, my neighbor gratefully accepted my offer. "She just keeps having kittens," she sighed, "and I can't afford to get her spayed." She also agreed to let me find homes for those kittens I could convince her to part with. (I wanted to carefully screen the adopters, which I knew she wouldn't do.)

According to a recent survey, people's reasons for not spaying and neutering their animals usually boil down to simple economics and logistics, rather than a conscious decision not to do it. The neighbor whose cat kept having litters has three kids and is on welfare—she just couldn't afford to pay for the surgery. (Eventually, the bank foreclosed on her house, which is when she asked me to take the remaining animals—Sam, his sister Bibi, and his mother, Tiger.)

Another neighbor doesn't have a car, so I offered to drive her to the clinic for her cat's appointment. Yet another neighbor didn't realize that his 5-month-old female kitten could come into heat any day. Wanting to ensure that this busy single dad didn't put it off until it was too late, I offered to make the appointment and take her myself. He readily agreed, and I did the same with the family's other cat and two dogs.

In total, I have arranged for more than a dozen dogs and cats in my neighborhood to be spayed and neutered at PETA's "Spay and Neuter Immediately, Please!" (SNIP) mobile clinic. In some cases, the animals' guardians were willing to pay for the surgery—it was just a matter of making the appointments and arranging transportation. That was a small investment in time that reaped huge rewards in terms of the prevention of unwanted litters—and suffering.

No matter where you live, there are animal companions in your town who have not been spayed or neutered. Here are some easy steps you can take to make your neighborhood a "no-litter" zone:

• Print out PETA's Top 5 Reasons to Spay Today" poster and plaster them all over town. Post them in your veterinarian's office, grocery stores, and pet supply stores or on bulletin boards at your local dog park or where you work—anywhere you have permission to place them. You could also create your own posters offering to help animals get spayed or neutered. Distribute them in low-income areas in your vicinity, and remember to include your contact information.
• Have dogs and cats sterilized at a local clinic (ask the vet for a special "rescue" rate) or through a low-cost spay and neuter program.
• Raise money for surgeries by having garage sales or bake sales and by "passing the hat" among friends and coworkers.
• Write to your governor and urge him or her to support a statewide spay and neuter ordinance.
• Ask your local TV stations to air PETA's spay-and-neuter public service announcements.
• If your local animal shelter doesn't spay or neuter animals before adoption, push hard for a policy change.
• Donate to SNIP. A $70 donation will cover the cost of spaying or neutering one animal (plus shots, flea prevention, and more), potentially saving hundreds of lives.

Written by Alisa Mullins

It's a good thing that my hubby, Tim, has such a huge heart, or I would probably be in a pickle right now. You see, this year, he shares his birthday with Spay Day, which is this Tuesday, February 23. Lucky for you, that means a starry slideshow of PETA's brightest and boldest spay-and-neuter ads (versus mushy photos of Tim and me on vacation in Boulder).

 

 

Feeling inspired? Great! Tell us how you'll help animals on Spay Day.

Written by Karin Bennett

When Ron Artest isn't sticking it to his opponents on the basketball court, he's sticking up for animals. That's why the Houston Rockets forward teamed up with us and the Houston Humane Society to star in an ad urging people to get their dogs "fixed."

 

 

"These animals are literally dying for a good home," says Artest, the NBA Defensive Player of the Year for the 2003-2004 season. "Millions of dogs and cats in shelters across the country are euthanized every year because there simply aren't enough good homes for them. Spaying and neutering your [animal companion] will help control the overpopulation problem."

Artest unveiled the ad today in honor of Spay Day. Check out photos from the event below:

 

 

Written by Christine Doré

On Monday, a 15-year-old chimpanzee named Travis, who was kept as a "pet" by a woman in Connecticut, went on a rampage and mauled a visitor. Travis was stabbed multiple times, "pounded" with a shovel, and eventually shot to death.

A former "star" of Coca-Cola and Old Navy commercials and an episode of the Maury Povich Show, Travis was "raised almost like a child by this family," according to a police officer. Great—except that 200-pound chimpanzees aren't children.

Keeping any wild animal as a "pet" is inhumane and dangerous. There have been scores of incidents in which captive chimpanzees inflicted grave injuries on people. This tragedy illustrates the need for Connecticut to add primates to its ban on potentially dangerous animals—which already includes big cats, bears, and wolves—and we have asked Governor Rell to do that.

Academy Award–winning actor Anjelica Huston has spoken up in a moving public service announcement in behalf of great apes used for entertainment. Check it out below:

 

Other Viewing Options

 

Thanks to companies like CareerBuilder and, more recently, Castrol Oil, whose ads show baby chimpanzees dressed up in clothes and "monkeying around" in offices and service stations, many people seem to think of chimpanzees as comical sub-human clowns. They aren't. They are wild animals who are torn away from their mothers at an obscenely young age and beaten into submission. By the time they are 8, they are big enough and strong enough to fight back, which earns them a one-way ticket to a cage in someone's basement or a concrete pit at a roadside zoo.

Neither Travis nor any other great ape belongs in show business. Who ends up happy in this story? Were those 30-second commercials really worth a lifetime of confinement in an unsuitable environment that eventually led to a woman's grave injury and Travis's death? Click here to take action on this issue.

Please, complain loudly any time you see a primate used in a movie, TV show, or advertisement. To learn more about this issue, you can catch PETA's Lisa Lange talking about Travis on Bill O'Reilly's show tonight at 8 p.m. on Fox News.

Written by Alisa Mullins

PETA's Spay Day Pack

That’s right—today is Spay Day, people. It’s like Christmas for kittens. Passover for puppies. Um, Bastille Day for bunnies? Apparently, we don’t get a day off for Spay Day here at PETA (I asked), but we are encouraged to take a few moments to reflect on the staggering number of unwanted animals that can result when someone won’t spay or neuter their pets. Check it:

With that in mind, here are my personal favorites among the many videos we’ve produced over the past couple of years to raise awareness about this issue. Let me know which one you think is the most effective. And have a glorious Spay Day.

John McEnroe Raises a Racket


Kitties Get Frisky


Did You Know?


Ron Jeremy Comes Out Against Sex

And just in case you need even more Spay Day inspiration, check out this great story about a Michigan group who are doing their part to end animal overpopulation.