VCSNAP spay and neuter clinic closes; new ventures

The Valencia County Spay Neuter Assistance Partnership clinic — as we know it — has come to a close after about three years of serving the community and shelter animals.

However, all ends lead to new beginnings, which all local organizations are actively working toward.

The VCSNAP clinic, located directly next to the Valencia County Animal Services building in Los Lunas, operated through a partnership between VCAS and The Homeless Animal Rescue Team of New Mexico, a local animal rescue organization.

Through the clinic, shelter animals were able to be spayed and neutered before leaving the facility, and residents could also utilize low-cost spay and neuter services for their pets, as well as trap, neuter, return (TNR) services for feral cats.

In late July, it was announced the contract between the two would be coming to an end as HART would be departing with their last day being Aug. 8.

“It was a delight serving this community for the past (three) years,” read a statement on HART’s Facebook page. “To date, we have completed 7,137 spays/neuters and 12,906 vaccines!”

VCAS Director Jess Weston said, “HART has been awesome to us, but unfortunately the (memorandum of understanding between Valencia County and HART) just wasn’t working anymore.”

Weston said the MOU stipulated that VCAS would provide the facility and the bigger surgical equipment for the clinic, and HART would provide the manpower, but HART became unable to comply with the MOU regarding staffing.

“At that point, we, as the county, decided it was time to take over the program, reorganize and start fresh,” said Weston. “We hope the best for them and, hopefully, we can all work together because, at the end of the day, it’s all about helping the community and getting the animals fixed. The volume of intakes we have ... the only answer to that is spay and neuter.”

HART president Shannon Kmatz echoed Weston’s sentiment in that it had become “an untenable relationship,” citing financial disagreements, and that parting ways would allow HART to better serve the community through a partnership formed with the Spay-Neuter Coalition of New Mexico.

In September, Spay-Neuter Coalition of NM announced they are in the process of creating a mobile spay and neuter clinic with the assistance of HART that they hope to get up and running by early next year.

Kmatz said the mobility is valuable because clinics can be set up throughout the county and beyond to target a wide variety of areas, especially those most in need.

“We’re in the process of getting a trailer set up to do mobile clinics. Starting out, our primary focus is going to be TNR,” said Kmatz.

Currently, there are no TNR services available in the county as HART was the only organization offering this service prior to their departure from the clinic, so they want that to be the first priority as they have a long wait list.

Kmatz said several veterinarians have already reached out, willing to volunteer one day a month for the spay and neuter surgeries. Once they get through the wait list, they plan on opening up low-cost spay and neuter services to the public as well as vaccines, heartworm and feline leukemia testing, flea and tick prevention and a community pet food bank for qualifying residents.

So far, the partners have made renovations to the trailer and are now working to get it set up with surgical equipment.

“We do have options to help raise money to get everything because we still want to offer high quality service,” said Kmatz.

The coalition’s sponsorships include options for personal and corporate donations of cash, labor or equipment. Donations more than $500 will be listed on the exterior of the trailer, and donations more than $1,000 will be listed in larger letters and can display a logo. They also offer an “in memory of” option for a personal cat or dog with $100 for an animal name and $250 for an animal name and photo.

For more information, email the coalition at spayneuternm@gmail.com or message them via their Facebook page. Donations can be made through the website, spayneuternm.org. Donations can still be sent to HART via their website, hartnm.com, but they will not be tax deductible as they currently do not have a 501c3 tax filing status.

Weston said following HART’s departure, the clinic was down for about 30 days, but with the help of two other local animal welfare groups — All for Animals (AFA) and Southwest Animal Team (SWAT) — they were able to get the supplies needed and are now able to continue spaying and neutering shelter animals. Weston would like to open up spay and neuter services for the public again, but they are not able to offer that just yet.

“The hard part for us right now is we’re back online and we’re getting caught back up, but we’re not able to operate at the capacity we want to,” said Weston. “Instead of doing 15-20 surgeries a day, we’re doing 8-10.”

Last October, VCAS hired a full-time veterinarian to conduct the surgeries, but he needs some assistance to keep up with the amount of animals the shelter regularly takes in.

“We were able to take one of our kennel techs and move them into the spay and neuter clinic to help Dr. Zimmerman temporarily while we try and find some more funding for a (full time) vet tech,” said Weston. “The county said to put it in the budget and we’ll see if we can get a vet tech position funded come July.”

Weston said they also have a backlog of surgeries from previous adoptions they need to catch up on, but once they are back up to speed they hope to expand service to the community.

“Nothing should leave our facility unless it’s fixed, and that’s the ultimate goal for us to get to right now,” said Weston. “Once we get that accomplished, then we’ll open up public spots for spay and neuter, and I would love to get a TNR program going...(TNR) is built into our ordinance, we do allow it and we are a TNR friendly community. It is a huge help to us also here in the facility.”

Weston said VCAS benefits greatly from the help of volunteers, and the clinic especially is in need of volunteers with some veterinary clinic experience.

“They don’t necessarily need to be a tech or vet, but someone who has been around the field a bit and knows how to listen to a heartbeat and watch them recover; those are the things that are limiting us on the numbers of animals we can run through the clinic in a day,” he said.

If you are interested in volunteering, call the volunteer coordinator Jacob Rael at 505-866-2479 or email jacob.rael@co.valencia.nm.us

Weston said the support of the community goes a long way, and he urges people to emphasize the need of a vet tech at VCAS to the county commissioners as the position will be an asset to the community. He also encourages the community to support local rescue organizations.

“HART, The Spay/Neuter Coalition, AFA, SWAT those are our four big ones that help us out a lot and anybody who can help those organizations out, they tremendously help us,” said Weston. “At the end of the day, we are not able to do what we do unless we have the support of the community and that includes our rescues.”