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Spay Day USA 2005

For the month of February we held our first big fundraiser, "Spay Day USA 2005".  We auctioned off items on ebay and sold our Spay/Neuter Car Ribbon Magnets.  On Saturday February 19th we set up at Petco in Wallingford, CT.  There we handed out literature, sold our magnets, t-shirts and raffle tickets for some great prizes.  Just before packing it up we were visited by Mr. Waters, a reporter for the Record-Journal Newspaper.  He did a wonderful story on us (below).  We'd like to thank all who donated, Mr. Waters, Petco and it's staff for all their help and support. 

NEWS RELEASE:

City woman lanuches a home-grown animal aid program

By Martin J. Waters, Record-Journal staff

WALLINGFORD — When Lu Alvarez's 12-year-old chow chow died, she went looking for another dog on the Internet — where she found a wide world of information about homeless pets that turned her into an activist.

"I couldn't believe the amount of unwanted animals. It was just overwhelming and I needed to do something," she said Saturday during a day-long outreach session at the Petco store in Wallingford.

She responded to the national problem by acting locally. She turned her deep concern over the vast numbers of unwanted dogs and cats put to death each year into Four Legged Life Savers Inc.

It's a nonprofit organization through which she is encouraging people to adopt animals and urging pet owners to spay and neuter their four-legged companions to reduce dog and cat births.

"My biggest thing is seeing these ads — free kittens, free kittens," Alvarez said. "We want to stop that."

She set up the event at Petco just ahead of the annual national Spay Day USA, on Tuesday. It is sponsored by the Doris Day Animal Foundation, which estimates that two unaltered cats and all their unaltered descendants can number as many as 420,000 in just seven years.

In Connecticut, state and local animal control agencies put to death about 4,000 to 5,000 dogs each year. Statistics are not maintained on cats. National estimates are considered very rough, but some experts say that as many as four million dogs and four million cats are euthanized annually.

Alvarez, at a table near the front of the Petco store that was stocked with informational pamphlets, told customers that spaying and neutering benefit individual animals as well as providing population control.

"There are positive health effects for your pets. Breast cancer in dogs is reduced. There are general health effects. Your pets may live longer," she said.

Her visit to Petco also served as a fund raiser for Four Legged Life Savers. She collected donations, conducted a raffle for gift baskets of pet-related items and sold magnetic ribbons for display on cars that say, "Please spay and neuter."

Although the 34-year-old Alvarez embarked last year on an effort to educate others, she also did her part on the home front. A year after her dog died, her household pet population has quadrupled. She adopted two dogs and two disabled cats.

One cat was born with brain damage because its mother suffered from distemper. The other has deformed rear legs.

The distemper case, Alvarez said, points out another issue to which more pet owners need to pay attention — making sure their dogs and cats receive all needed vaccinations.