DEMAND Low-Cost Spay/Neuter from Veterinarians in the USA
DEMAND Low-Cost Spay/Neuter from Veterinarians in the USA
The Issue
Open Letter to the American Veterinary Medical Association:
According to the published article by Dr. Lisa Milot,
Backyard Breeding: Regulatory Nuisance, Crime Precursor, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3316914
4 out of 5 backyard breeders would spay or neuter their pets if it was low-cost or free. This was the first academic article on the small-scale commercial breeding of dogs, analyzing both the legal regimes that allow for proliferation of backyard breeding and the effect on local communities.
As the AVMA is fully aware, in OUR America, annual numbers of destroyed pets exceed 7 MILLION per year. When I was growing up it was 6 MILLION per year.
WE ARE NOT IMPROVING.
Shelters are OVERWHELMED.
Rescues are OVERWHELMED.
And EVERYDAY, young healthy loving pets are DESTROYED to make room for the wave of animals coming the next day.
And the next...
And the next...
IT. NEVER. ENDS.
WHY?
BECAUSE PEOPLE CAN'T AFFORD TO SPAY AND NEUTER THEIR PETS!
And the DEATH of all these wonderful beautiful animals is not even the most ABHORRENT RESULT...
It's the NEGLECT and CRUELTY and ABUSE because people are desperate and pets are CHEAP and PLENTIFUL and easy SCAPEGOATS for misery.
- The sweet puppy with his eye popped out of his skull from being hit so hard on the back of his head...
- Cats found alive but covered in tar, with their paws bound in tape.
- Abandoned dogs with their mouths taped shut so tight they couldn't drink.
- The cat doused in gasoline and set on fire for "laughs".
The more DESPERATE people become, the more TWISTED and WARPED their abuses will grow.
If pets were not so prolific, they would be VALUED more.
PROTECTED more.
Horrifically, MUCH of the blame for the grotesque number of healthy dogs and cats being abused and destroyed in the United States can be put squarely on the Veterinary Medical Community for continuing to charge exorbitant prices for basic spay/neuter surgeries. If veterinarians truly love dogs and cats as they purport, they would massively reduce the number of euthanasias by offering low-cost spay/neuters.
To neuter a rescue dog in northern Nevada costs over $500. Not in a big city. Not in a metropolitan area. In the countryside. $500. One rescue dog.
THAT'S. OBSCENE.
No WONDER shelters and rescues can't keep up!
The cost of living is getting higher. People are getting poorer. People can't afford FOOD and RENT let alone excessive fees for routine surgeries. It's DEPRAVED to force poor counties to scrounge and scrape to subsidize egregious veterinary fees or force rescues to pay FULL PRICE to alter an abandoned dog.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
It's time the Veterinary Medical Community stepped up and accepted responsibility for playing a KEY ROLE in this extermination of beautiful lives!
THEREFORE...
To facilitate what should have been done VOLUNTARILY, Low Cost Spay/Neuter Now demands that the American Veterinary Medical Association immediately institute a Nationwide Mandatory Price Cap on the cost of basic spay/neuter:
No matter what state or what region, puppies should be spayed for $50, dogs should be spayed for $75, and cats for $25. Period. Extra services can be a la carte but basic spay/neuters should be standardized across the country. Make it an unenforced mandate, and let individual clinics decide whether they will ENABLE the continued slaughter of loving healthy animals or help PREVENT IT...
...And then an educated populace can determine if they will continue supporting that veterinary clinic with their business!
To continue to allow veterinarians to profit off of such critically-needed surgeries is REPREHENSIBLE and perpetuates the resulting misery of MILLIONS OF ANIMALS that the AMVA swore an oath to help.
IT'S UNCONSCIONABLE.
Cap the surgeries because everyone knows it is the right thing to do. Make it a permanent mandatory cap and in 2 years there will be MILLIONS LESS healthy loving animals being killed.
And the AVMA can take ALL THE CREDIT.
...Not the ASPCA, not HSUS, both of whom receive MILLIONS of dollars in donations annually to stop the slaughter. No, just the AMVA would receive the gratitude of a nation and the admiration of the world for singlehandedly MASSIVELY reducing the numbers of homeless pets being destroyed annually!
This is a no-brainer.
However, in the absence of AVMA action, Low Cost Spay Neuter NOW, (LCS2N) will call for a month-long national boycott of non-emergency veterinary services, and we will repeat this ban QUARTERLY until the price cap is implemented.
SHAME ON THE VETERINARY MEDICAL COMMUNITY.
DO THE RIGHT THING, NOW! --Institute a Mandatory Nationwide Price Cap on Spay/Neuter Surgeries!
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Resources:
One out of four pet owners experiences barriers to obtaining veterinary care, and the primary obstacle for all pet owners seeking any type of care is finances, according to the report from the Access to Veterinary Care Coalition. Access to Veterinary Care: Barriers, Current Practices, and Public Policy https://www.avma.org/javma-news/2019-02-15/report-outlines-barriers-accessing-veterinary-care-possible-solutions
Across all demographic groups, cost appeared to be the largest barrier to veterinary care with 49.6% of participants indicating cost to be a challenge. Association between Dog Owner Demographics and Decision to Seek Veterinary Care, Rachel M. Park, Margaret E. Gruen and Kenneth Royal, Department of Clinical Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA; Vet. Sci. 2021, 8(1), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci8010007
A group in Colorado—All Pets Deserve Vet Care, funded in part by the Dumb Friends League and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)— proposed a new veterinary role called a veterinary professional associate (VPA) to improve access and reduce vet care costs but it was shot down by the industry: "Dr. Bolser expressed concern about a VPA handling what proponents call 'routine surgeries,' including spay and neuter procedures." Numerous organizations and individuals have come out against Proposition 129, from veterinary associations to animal owners to animal welfare organizations. Most recently, the American Animal Hospital Association and Student AVMA have voiced their opposition to the measure. How Colorado became ground zero for veterinary midlevel practitioner debate; Malinda Larkin, AVMA News, October 2024
All Pets Deserve Vet Care
https://allpetsdeservevetcare.com/
1,509
The Issue
Open Letter to the American Veterinary Medical Association:
According to the published article by Dr. Lisa Milot,
Backyard Breeding: Regulatory Nuisance, Crime Precursor, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3316914
4 out of 5 backyard breeders would spay or neuter their pets if it was low-cost or free. This was the first academic article on the small-scale commercial breeding of dogs, analyzing both the legal regimes that allow for proliferation of backyard breeding and the effect on local communities.
As the AVMA is fully aware, in OUR America, annual numbers of destroyed pets exceed 7 MILLION per year. When I was growing up it was 6 MILLION per year.
WE ARE NOT IMPROVING.
Shelters are OVERWHELMED.
Rescues are OVERWHELMED.
And EVERYDAY, young healthy loving pets are DESTROYED to make room for the wave of animals coming the next day.
And the next...
And the next...
IT. NEVER. ENDS.
WHY?
BECAUSE PEOPLE CAN'T AFFORD TO SPAY AND NEUTER THEIR PETS!
And the DEATH of all these wonderful beautiful animals is not even the most ABHORRENT RESULT...
It's the NEGLECT and CRUELTY and ABUSE because people are desperate and pets are CHEAP and PLENTIFUL and easy SCAPEGOATS for misery.
- The sweet puppy with his eye popped out of his skull from being hit so hard on the back of his head...
- Cats found alive but covered in tar, with their paws bound in tape.
- Abandoned dogs with their mouths taped shut so tight they couldn't drink.
- The cat doused in gasoline and set on fire for "laughs".
The more DESPERATE people become, the more TWISTED and WARPED their abuses will grow.
If pets were not so prolific, they would be VALUED more.
PROTECTED more.
Horrifically, MUCH of the blame for the grotesque number of healthy dogs and cats being abused and destroyed in the United States can be put squarely on the Veterinary Medical Community for continuing to charge exorbitant prices for basic spay/neuter surgeries. If veterinarians truly love dogs and cats as they purport, they would massively reduce the number of euthanasias by offering low-cost spay/neuters.
To neuter a rescue dog in northern Nevada costs over $500. Not in a big city. Not in a metropolitan area. In the countryside. $500. One rescue dog.
THAT'S. OBSCENE.
No WONDER shelters and rescues can't keep up!
The cost of living is getting higher. People are getting poorer. People can't afford FOOD and RENT let alone excessive fees for routine surgeries. It's DEPRAVED to force poor counties to scrounge and scrape to subsidize egregious veterinary fees or force rescues to pay FULL PRICE to alter an abandoned dog.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
It's time the Veterinary Medical Community stepped up and accepted responsibility for playing a KEY ROLE in this extermination of beautiful lives!
THEREFORE...
To facilitate what should have been done VOLUNTARILY, Low Cost Spay/Neuter Now demands that the American Veterinary Medical Association immediately institute a Nationwide Mandatory Price Cap on the cost of basic spay/neuter:
No matter what state or what region, puppies should be spayed for $50, dogs should be spayed for $75, and cats for $25. Period. Extra services can be a la carte but basic spay/neuters should be standardized across the country. Make it an unenforced mandate, and let individual clinics decide whether they will ENABLE the continued slaughter of loving healthy animals or help PREVENT IT...
...And then an educated populace can determine if they will continue supporting that veterinary clinic with their business!
To continue to allow veterinarians to profit off of such critically-needed surgeries is REPREHENSIBLE and perpetuates the resulting misery of MILLIONS OF ANIMALS that the AMVA swore an oath to help.
IT'S UNCONSCIONABLE.
Cap the surgeries because everyone knows it is the right thing to do. Make it a permanent mandatory cap and in 2 years there will be MILLIONS LESS healthy loving animals being killed.
And the AVMA can take ALL THE CREDIT.
...Not the ASPCA, not HSUS, both of whom receive MILLIONS of dollars in donations annually to stop the slaughter. No, just the AMVA would receive the gratitude of a nation and the admiration of the world for singlehandedly MASSIVELY reducing the numbers of homeless pets being destroyed annually!
This is a no-brainer.
However, in the absence of AVMA action, Low Cost Spay Neuter NOW, (LCS2N) will call for a month-long national boycott of non-emergency veterinary services, and we will repeat this ban QUARTERLY until the price cap is implemented.
SHAME ON THE VETERINARY MEDICAL COMMUNITY.
DO THE RIGHT THING, NOW! --Institute a Mandatory Nationwide Price Cap on Spay/Neuter Surgeries!
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Resources:
One out of four pet owners experiences barriers to obtaining veterinary care, and the primary obstacle for all pet owners seeking any type of care is finances, according to the report from the Access to Veterinary Care Coalition. Access to Veterinary Care: Barriers, Current Practices, and Public Policy https://www.avma.org/javma-news/2019-02-15/report-outlines-barriers-accessing-veterinary-care-possible-solutions
Across all demographic groups, cost appeared to be the largest barrier to veterinary care with 49.6% of participants indicating cost to be a challenge. Association between Dog Owner Demographics and Decision to Seek Veterinary Care, Rachel M. Park, Margaret E. Gruen and Kenneth Royal, Department of Clinical Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA; Vet. Sci. 2021, 8(1), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci8010007
A group in Colorado—All Pets Deserve Vet Care, funded in part by the Dumb Friends League and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)— proposed a new veterinary role called a veterinary professional associate (VPA) to improve access and reduce vet care costs but it was shot down by the industry: "Dr. Bolser expressed concern about a VPA handling what proponents call 'routine surgeries,' including spay and neuter procedures." Numerous organizations and individuals have come out against Proposition 129, from veterinary associations to animal owners to animal welfare organizations. Most recently, the American Animal Hospital Association and Student AVMA have voiced their opposition to the measure. How Colorado became ground zero for veterinary midlevel practitioner debate; Malinda Larkin, AVMA News, October 2024
All Pets Deserve Vet Care
https://allpetsdeservevetcare.com/
1,509
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Petition created on January 6, 2025