Page 17 - Volume 18 Issue 2
P. 17
Student Life
Two student clubs!
70 healthier homeless cats!
T hanks to two student clubs, 70 homeless neighborhood nuisances; they prey on native and performing the neuter or spay surgeries. Dr.
cats on and around the Pomona, Calif.,
birds and can spread disease. Even those that
Kinney, Hillary Carroll, DVM, and four vet techs
were on hand to supervise and guide.
used to be pets can scratch and bite well-meaning
campus have healthier lives.
The student chapters of the Association of Shelter humans. “It was an assembly line,” said Natalia Pfaff,
Veterinarians and the American Association of Life on the streets is hard. The cats hunt for food DVM ’19, the cat club’s president.
Feline Practitioners, respectively known as the and fight over territory. One captured cat had an
shelter club and the cat club, held two trap- eye abscess so severe, the eye had to be removed. “It was intense,” Phillips said. “But everyone was
neuter-release programs in the early months of A lot of the trapped cats had worms, fleas, and smiling.”
2017. were dehydrated.
A few cat club members lent their experience to
The cat club captured 20 cats and treated them on One survey estimated that 75 percent of feral the shelter club’s World Spay Day project. Over
Jan. 28 at the nearby Inland Valley Animal Shelter kittens die by the age of six months, said three days, 80 traps were set; 50 cats were caught.
under the supervision of the shelter’s medical Samantha Phillips, DVM ’19, the cat club’s vice On Sunday, Feb. 12, doctors Zarah Hedge, DVM
director, Cynthia Kinney, DVM ’07. president. ’09, MPH, DACVPM; Frank Bossong, DVM,
David Forester, DVM, MRCVS, MAICS, Kinney,
The shelter club members scheduled its project Students in both events set out borrowed traps in fourth-year students, and several technicians
for World Spay Day, Feb. 12. Both mobile VACS nearby neighborhoods over several evenings, volunteered to help the club members.
units, staff, and students set-up an on-campus checking them each morning. Each trap had food
treatment center for 50 captured cats. Cat club to lure cats in, and towels to keep them “There were so many beautiful cats, and some
members, fresh from their previous effort, comfortable and warm. obviously were once someone’s pet,” said Kelly
pitched in. Voss, DVM ’19, the president of the shelter club.
“If we set the traps correctly, the cat has to step
The trap-neuter-release programs were both down, which triggers the gate to close,” Phillips Both projects were made possible with donations
training sessions for first- and second-year said. of cat traps, surgical tools, flea medication, and
students and a community service. Limiting the rabies vaccine. After the spay or neuter surgeries
number of litters is a humane way to deal with Cat club members delivered the trapped cats to were completed, the young veterinarians clipped
the growing feral feline population, now the Inland Valley shelter’s feral cat ward, and each cat’s right ear as a sign that they had been
estimated to be about 26,000 in the city of spent a full Saturday sedating the cats, giving neutered or spayed. The cats were then released
Pomona. Abandoned pets and feral cats can be them physical exams, administering vaccinations, in the area they came from.
Veterinary Outlook 15
Two student clubs!
70 healthier homeless cats!
T hanks to two student clubs, 70 homeless neighborhood nuisances; they prey on native and performing the neuter or spay surgeries. Dr.
cats on and around the Pomona, Calif.,
birds and can spread disease. Even those that
Kinney, Hillary Carroll, DVM, and four vet techs
were on hand to supervise and guide.
used to be pets can scratch and bite well-meaning
campus have healthier lives.
The student chapters of the Association of Shelter humans. “It was an assembly line,” said Natalia Pfaff,
Veterinarians and the American Association of Life on the streets is hard. The cats hunt for food DVM ’19, the cat club’s president.
Feline Practitioners, respectively known as the and fight over territory. One captured cat had an
shelter club and the cat club, held two trap- eye abscess so severe, the eye had to be removed. “It was intense,” Phillips said. “But everyone was
neuter-release programs in the early months of A lot of the trapped cats had worms, fleas, and smiling.”
2017. were dehydrated.
A few cat club members lent their experience to
The cat club captured 20 cats and treated them on One survey estimated that 75 percent of feral the shelter club’s World Spay Day project. Over
Jan. 28 at the nearby Inland Valley Animal Shelter kittens die by the age of six months, said three days, 80 traps were set; 50 cats were caught.
under the supervision of the shelter’s medical Samantha Phillips, DVM ’19, the cat club’s vice On Sunday, Feb. 12, doctors Zarah Hedge, DVM
director, Cynthia Kinney, DVM ’07. president. ’09, MPH, DACVPM; Frank Bossong, DVM,
David Forester, DVM, MRCVS, MAICS, Kinney,
The shelter club members scheduled its project Students in both events set out borrowed traps in fourth-year students, and several technicians
for World Spay Day, Feb. 12. Both mobile VACS nearby neighborhoods over several evenings, volunteered to help the club members.
units, staff, and students set-up an on-campus checking them each morning. Each trap had food
treatment center for 50 captured cats. Cat club to lure cats in, and towels to keep them “There were so many beautiful cats, and some
members, fresh from their previous effort, comfortable and warm. obviously were once someone’s pet,” said Kelly
pitched in. Voss, DVM ’19, the president of the shelter club.
“If we set the traps correctly, the cat has to step
The trap-neuter-release programs were both down, which triggers the gate to close,” Phillips Both projects were made possible with donations
training sessions for first- and second-year said. of cat traps, surgical tools, flea medication, and
students and a community service. Limiting the rabies vaccine. After the spay or neuter surgeries
number of litters is a humane way to deal with Cat club members delivered the trapped cats to were completed, the young veterinarians clipped
the growing feral feline population, now the Inland Valley shelter’s feral cat ward, and each cat’s right ear as a sign that they had been
estimated to be about 26,000 in the city of spent a full Saturday sedating the cats, giving neutered or spayed. The cats were then released
Pomona. Abandoned pets and feral cats can be them physical exams, administering vaccinations, in the area they came from.
Veterinary Outlook 15
