Adios, Animal Overpopulation: PETA Latino’s Free Spay/Neuter Events in Mexico Are Changing Lives

A total of 255 dogs and cats in Cancún, Mexico, attended “summer school” over the weekend: a Global Compassion Fund–supported spay/neuter clinic at the Primaria José Marti Villas Otoch Paraiso school. This is the third time this year the team has held a high-volume event like this in the city, reaching 912 dogs and cats so far!

The school was a breeze for locals to reach, and the 0 pesos price tag meant the surgery was affordable for everyone.

Local animal shelter staff pushed the desks to the side to make room for operating tables, but education on compassion and caring for animals remained front and center. While guardians waited, the team passed out vegan starter kits and vegan burritos with copies of PETA President Ingrid Newkirk’s book Un Mundo de Amor para los Animales (A World of Love for Animals) and fun, animal-friendly activity books for the children.

The patients looked dashing in their new collars and harnesses, and they’ll rest easy with the free flea and tick preventive and deworming medication the team provided. Local media outlets and shelters helped promote the event, and staff are staying in Cancún a little while longer to host a dog behavior training session for local animal shelter workers.

Why We Spay/Neuter

• Decrease overpopulation: Just one unaltered female dog and her offspring can produce 67,000 puppies in only six years. In seven years, one female cat and her offspring can produce an astonishing 370,000 kittens!
• Increase life spans: Sterilized animals live longer, happier lives. Spaying eliminates the stress and discomfort that females endure during heat periods, eliminates the risk of uterine cancer, and greatly reduces the risk of mammary cancer. Neutering makes males far less likely to roam or fight, prevents testicular cancer, and reduces the risk of prostate cancer. Altered animals are less likely to contract deadly, contagious diseases that are spread through bodily fluids, such as feline AIDS and feline leukemia.

How You Can Help Animals

Events like this are supported by gifts to PETA’s Global Compassion Fund. You can help fund pop-up sterilization clinics like this one and help teams work to end the suffering of animals through rescue and outreach programs in places like Jordan, Romania, and Ukraine by donating today.