Twenty-five shelter cats were spayed or neutered — and made more adoptable as a result — thanks to our Light Up a Life grant to Coulee Region Humane Society, Inc., in Onalaska, Wis., last year. We received this report from grants assistant Peg Zappen, who tells us, “We are so grateful for this grant support for our cats. You make our world a better place for animals.” We are so glad we could help!
Zappen writes: “Coulee Region Humane Society is an open-admission shelter at which cats still face space-related euthanasia. We are in a community that has an ordinance requiring that animals adopted from the shelter be altered. One outcome of this is that altering shelter animals post-adoption is a source of income for local veterinary clinics. This is very positive but the reality is that people have become accustomed to finding animals who are already altered at limited-admission shelters in our region. Having the expense of spay/neuter puts cats at our shelter at a disadvantage when it comes to adoption.
“Over the past 20 months, we have been working with local clinics to build support for spay/neuter of shelter cats at a price we and grantors can afford and accept. For this grant we had three clinics — a record number — alter cats for $50 each. This is very significant for us to have moved from no support to having three participating clinics in this time period. Twenty-five cats were altered with this grant.
“All these cats have similar stories — they found themselves in an open admission shelter, unaltered and in need of help. Here is a little information about a few of the cats who you helped:
“Fiona is a fabulous, beautiful calico who was surrendered to us with two 2-day-old kittens. Fiona and her kittens were fostered by a staff member. All are adopted and much loved in their new homes.
“Archimedes is a short-haired orange guy who is the life of the party, really a goofball in the nicest sense of the word. He was altered, recovered, appeared on a local TV station and was adopted within two days.
“Whisper and Diamond are two gray-and-white girls who were surrendered from the same home. They are now altered and living together in our communal room, awaiting their forever home.”
