Spay Day

Spay Day is an annual event held by many shelters and humane organizations around the country to raise awareness about spaying/neutering or offer low cost spay/neuter services for pets that would otherwise not be altered.

Today was the day the clinic I help with decided to hold their event.  It is usually held in February but last year I guess so many of the cats (we only do cats on spay day) showed up pregnant that they decided to do it earlier.

So, we had a marathon of cat spays and neuters today.   This was my first time doing that many so it was a bit of an adventure.  It would be one thing if we spread them out over a normal work day, took a lunch break etc, but we needed them all awake in time to go home this afternoon.  This meant it was pretty much nonstop work.  There were typically 2-3 animals being prepped and waiting for me as I worked on the current surgery.  Just by chance we ended up with 15 males and 15 females.  We started with the females so we could finish with the easy ones.  I've got to say, by about #13 I was getting pretty tired and my hands were not quite as steady as when I started out.  Then two of the males turned out to be females and one was already neutered.  So 29 surgeries in all!  We finished in under 5 hours though which equates to about 6 cats an hour.

And while this was personally a satisfying way to spend the morning, it was also rather financially satisfying so we took a quick trip to the local outlet mall.  Although we did manage to leave with only a few t-shirts and socks so I got to take most of my check home!

Now resting up for a 9-10 mile run tomorrow.  My dogs may never get trained again at this rate!