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E-mail StoryThose doggone delays
| Friday, Mar 7 2008 1:48 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Mar 7 2008 2:30 PM
This story was originally published Feb. 12, 2006.
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Wayne Hodson adopted Daisy from the Bakersfield SPCA a week ago. One look into the cream-colored retriever's eyes sealed the deal.
His other dog, Nicholas, desperately needs a new friend after losing his sister to a car. Hodson and his wife searched for weeks before they met Daisy. They knew she was perfect immediately.
But Daisy didn't go home with them last Saturday.
Hodson still has to drive to the SPCA offices on Gibson Street every day to visit Daisy, play with her and brush her coat. And Nicholas has to wait.
State law says Hodson can't take Daisy home until she's been spayed.
And, these days, the SPCA faces a two-week backlog of spay and neuter operations.
The SPCA is a nonprofit group and most of the time has to approach veterinarians hat-in-hand and ask for free or reduced-cost surgeries and space in the vet's schedule.
There aren't a lot of takers.
"The majority of vets in town want nothing to do with it," said SPCA executive director Kevin Lykins.
There are nearly 50 veterinarians listed in the Bakersfield phone book, and more than 20 animal hospitals, but only five businesses will promise the SPCA surgery slots each week.
Lykins said he and his staff regularly beg for help from veterinarians -- an employee calls around once a day in the morning and asks for help.
But the largest number of animals the SPCA has been able to spay or neuter in a week is 18.
Some weeks it can be as few as seven or eight.
The average number of animals adopted each week is 20.
There is frustration in Lykins' voice when he talks about the need to keep animals and their new owners apart for weeks.
For every animal that goes out to a new family, the SPCA can rescue another cat or dog that might face euthanization in a county shelter. Unlike the Kern County shelter, the SPCA has no limit on how long they will care for a healthy dog or cat, but can only care for around 80 cats and 130 dogs at a time.
Lykins said he offers veterinarians the SPCA's mobile spay/neuter clinic and all the equipment to do the surgery if only the veterinarian will donate the time.
"Two spaces a week would be enough if three more vets would do that for us," Lykins said. "They're not giving to the SPCA. They're giving to the community by helping out with the pet overpopulation problem."
Kern County Animal Control, which adopts out a rough average of 54 animals a week and euthanizes around 320, doesn't have the same backlog for spays and neuters. The county contracts with North of the River Veterinary Hospital and pays the full cost of its animal alterations.
Marilyn Stewart, of ALPHA Canine Sanctuary, said she also doesn't have as many problems finding veterinary help because she doesn't adopt out as many animals as the SPCA.
She cautioned that shelter workers shouldn't assume veterinarians will be charitable with their time and expertise, she said. They have a business to run, after all.
"I do not think there is an obligation," she said.
But veterinarians, in her experience, are the kind of people who try to help out.
"It would be a rare veterinarian that does not do some charity work." she said. "I can't help thinking they go into business because they care about animals."
Local veterinarian Bryan Jenson of Olive Drive Animal Hospital said it is tough for veterinarians to fit non-profit groups into a busy schedule.
Jenson said he helps the Cat People, a group dedicated to reducing the stray cat population and which is best known for caring for cats that have been dumped at Hart Park. Lykins said Jenson is new in town and hasn't yet been asked to help out at the SPCA.
Jenson said running an animal hospital is expensive, and working for free can put a vet out of business.
He saw a recent letter to the editor in The Californian that suggested vets should donate one day a month to charity. He said that won't work.
"You have to be paid something for it. We can't be doing all their spays and neuters for free," he said.
A lot of nonprofits will hire a dedicated veterinarian to do their work.
"That way it gives the vet a job and keeps them out of the private practices' hair," Jenson said.
Lykins said the SPCA has plans to open such a clinic but, as always, is limited by funding.
For now, delays seem like they will be part of life at the SPCA for some time. But those delays are hard for adoptive families to understand.
Matt McCaleb brought his daughter Soleil, 3, in to adopt their new cat, Bobby, on Friday.
They won't take Bobby home for a couple of weeks. He needs to be neutered.
"We've got to wait for him to go to the vet. We'll have to come visit until he's done," McCaleb said.
But Soleil can't wait to get the cat home. She loves to snuggle up with animals so much, McCaleb said, that she won't sleep in her own bed.
The family dog sleeps in her older sister's bed, so Soleil sleeps there, too.
Bobby will be Soleil's.
The pair picked him out on an earlier visit -- or rather Bobby picked them out.
When the kennel keeper took Bobby out of his cage to introduce him to the father and daughter, the cat jumped right into McCaleb's arms where Soleil was already perched.
That was all it took.
"We made it down to Bobby's cage and we didn't make it any further," McCaleb said.