For animals, a summer romance can mean adding to the overpopulation crisis. But after July, nearly 800 animals near PETA's Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters won't have to worry about "getting in trouble"—like Rizzo. 

PETA's mobile veterinary clinics "snipped" 794 animals, including 154 whose families couldn't afford spay and neuter surgeries and 40 who couldn't get to the veterinarian without a ride there and back.

One patient, Trixie, lives in an area where there are no low-cost spay-and-neuter services available. Her guardian, a grandmother who is single-handedly caring for all her grandchildren, was ecstatic to be able to get Trixie spayed.

Not only did Coco the poodle get spayed, she also got the full beauty treatment. Staffers removed the painful mats from her fur, and now she and her happy guardian are sitting pretty.

Want to show animals some love this summer? Start by signing the pledge to end animal homelessness. 

As the sky-high temperatures across the country make clear, it's summer. But it's not vacation season for the staffers of PETA's mobile clinics division, who hit the road year-round to take low-cost to no-cost spay and neuter surgeries and other veterinary services to animals in need.

Too Hot to Be in Heat

We kicked off the summer in fine fashion—in June alone, the mobile clinics spayed and neutered 359 cats (84 of whom were feral) and 302 dogs, including 30 pit bulls. Here are some more stats to break it down even further:

• 127 of the animals were prepubescent, so they'll never reproduce and add to the overpopulation crisis.
• 105 surgeries were subsidized for indigent families.
• 32 animals were given door-to-door rides by PETA staff to and/or from our clinics.

In total, 661 animals were altered in June alone, including Booboo, whose guardian contacted PETA seeking help with flea prevention and grooming. He initially planned to breed this little Pomeranian, but when PETA offered to groom her for free, he gladly accepted the offer to have her spayed at the same time.

Another animal who caught the summer spay-and-neuter wave was Daisy, who was just about to come into heat for the first time. Fortunately, her guardians did not want that to happen, so PETA spayed her before she could have any puppies.

What You Can Do

Long summer days are the ideal time to help make life brighter for dogs and cats by pledging to end animal homelessness. One great way to start is to support PETA's work to address the homeless animal crisis—and you don't even have to go out in the heat to do it!

A 4-year-old pit bull named Sandy owes her life to a spay surgery that came not a moment too soon. Sandy's guardian had learned from her veterinarian that Sandy had a serious uterine infection, and while spay surgery would probably have cured it immediately, the vet's bill for the procedure would have been at least $900. Sandy's owner opted for far less costly antibiotic treatment, but two weeks later, Sandy's condition worsened. She stopped eating, and her distraught guardian called PETA for advice.

Sensing that Sandy was gravely ill, the head of our Mobile Clinics Division rearranged the clinics' schedules so that Sandy could be spayed the very next day (for free, a service that we offer for all pit bulls). During the operation, PETA's vet discovered that Sandy also had an enormous ovarian tumor. Suffering from two serious diseases, she almost certainly would have died, likely within days, without surgery.

Had Sandy been spayed as a puppy, she never would have developed the painful infection and ovarian tumor that put her life at risk. She is a living example of how spaying and neutering not only prevents unwanted animals from being born into a world bursting at the seams with them but also protects the health of those who are already here.

PETA's two mobile clinics spayed or neutered 770 animals in May, including Kharma, whose guardian was so grateful to have her spayed that despite his very limited income, he donated $75 to the program:

We also spayed Muffin, who had already had one litter of kittens for whom her guardian had difficulty finding homes:

Imagine stories like these occurring again and again each and every day, and you get some idea of the vital work performed by our mobile clinics every month.