The California Spay\/Neuter License Plate was made available in 2013.\u00a0Approximately $40 from each purchased plate will go towards spay & neuter programs throughout the state.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n [Disclosure: The author volunteers with Fix Long Beach, Friends of Long Beach Animals and Long Beach Animal Care Services, and has three spayed rescue cats who, at this writing, are curled up on the clean laundry.]<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n The pet-friendly-city banner will again be waved at tonight\u2019s City Council meeting. A representative from Friends of Long Beach Animals<\/a>,\u00a0Long Beach\u2019s most venerable animal-welfare organization, will speak before the Council around 4:30PM to request the adoption of a resolution that will proclaim the last Tuesday in February as World Spay Day. Then, on Sunday, February 26 at 7:00AM, FOLBA will team up with District 7 and ACS for its World Spay Day project: a mobile spay\/neuter clinic for the pets of District 7 residents.<\/p>\n World Spay Day<\/a>\u00a0is observed by animal organizations and pet lovers on the last Tuesday in February. The occasion started out in 1995 as Spay Day USA, a project created by the Doris Day Animal League (DDAL) to spotlight the number of cats and dogs that are put to sleep in shelters and the need for affordable spay\/neuter procedures to notably mitigate euthanasia procedures and assure that pets are taken care of. In conjunction with the United States Humane Society (HSUS)<\/a>, the organization\u2019s efforts became global, and the designated day was renamed World Spay Day. HSUS estimates that over a million animals have been spayed and neutered<\/a>\u00a0because of the efforts for this day.<\/p>\n On October 1, 2015, a mandatory Spay\/Neuter Ordinance<\/a> was added to the Long Beach Municipal Code with a Council vote of 7\u20131. The ordinance was part of a dual pet-welfare law that included the Pet Shop Ordinance, which makes the commercial sale of any dog, cat or rabbit illegal. Since October 1, animals in pet shops must come from a rescue or a shelter and be offered for adoption, not sale (Assemblymember Patrick O\u2019Donnell has crafted a bill to prevent profiting from pet sales across the state; see Assemblymember O\u2019Donnell Introduces Legislation to Curtail Puppy and Kitten Mills<\/a>).<\/p>\n The ordinance was developed to mitigate the number of unwanted animals and their litters brought in to the shelter and left to fend for themselves or die in the streets. During the public discussion section of the ordinance, a concern was brought up regarding the financial burden that spay\/neuter procedures would put on people who couldn\u2019t afford them. The council members who had presented the ordinance\u2014Suja Lowenthal, Suzie Price and Stacy Mungo\u2014had indeed made the bill conditional on the availability of free or low-cost procedures. In Long Beach, this wasn\u2019t much of a problem\u2014even before the ordinance\u2019s acceptance, there were free mobile clinics offered by Fix Long Beach<\/a>\u00a0and vouchers for free procedures provided by FOLBA and discounted vouchers from ACS at participating veterinary hospitals.<\/p>\n ACS reports have shown results going continually in the right direction. Still, not every animal in Long Beach has been fixed. FOLBA board member Donna Cottrell believes that there\u2019s more than one way to spay a cat\u2014or to get a cat or any pet fixed\u2014and she and her organization have planned a spay-day project along with Council District 7 and ACS. The idea came out of a frustration with the way FOLBA\u2019s also venerable SNIP<\/a>\u00a0free vouchers were being used\u2014or not being used.<\/p>\n FOLBA regularly has had its SNIP table with information about spay\/neuter and free fixes for residents of the city.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d give them out, and people would hoard them\u2014once, for five years,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re not doing vouchers for a while. We decided to look into other ways to do it. We wanted to do clinics at the shelter [in the new medical facility], but it\u2019s not in a good location for a lot of people, particularly if they don\u2019t have transportation. People who are underserved\u2014it\u2019s a long way to come.\u201d<\/p>\n In the late 1980s, when Cottrell was getting her master\u2019s degree in anthropology at CSULB, she worked on an AIDS research project funded by the Center for Disease Control. The project used a mobile clinic to reach the subjects because, as Cottrell said, they weren\u2019t going to come to the university so the university came to them. She thus felt that a lot of the people with pets that need fixing might be able to take small animals in carriers on public transportation, but large dogs are prohibited. Furthermore, Cottrell said, some residents are wary of going to a shelter or any government agency.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people don\u2019t even know about the shelter and where it is, and that isn\u2019t comfortable, either,\u201d Cottrell said. \u201cIf you want to make a relationship with people, you need to change their beliefs. And I\u2019ve always liked Fix Long Beach\u2019s model of using a mobile clinic and going into parks and neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n While researching spay\/neuter ideas online, Cottrell came across an HSUS link to World Spay Day.<\/p>\n \u201cThis year, it happens to be February 28, and the whole month of February is Spay\/Neuter Month,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I thought, wow, we should try to do something in honor of the day.\u201d One idea was to get Long Beach\u2019s government involved.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cWe have a mayor who loves animals!\u201d she said. Mayor Robert Garcia is rumored to have a catcam trained on his shelter rescue, Tommy, so he can keep an eye on him.<\/p>\n After considering target areas, Cottrell decided to focus on Long Beach’s West Side.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an island,\u201d she said. \u201cThey have no veterinarians. They have no pet-supply stores. They\u2019re underserved. I thought it was a great place to do a clinic.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"CA](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/CA_SPAY.jpg\")
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