ASPCA Announces New TNR Scheduling Center - by Joel Lopez, ASPCA - Winter 2009 - NYC Eartips

New York City Feral Cat Initiative - Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals

Veterinary staff prepare a cat for surgery at the ASPCA Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinic. (Photo by Meredith Weiss)

Veterinary staff prepare a cat for surgery

at the ASPCA Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinic.

Photo by Meredith Weiss

Home > NYC Eartips > Winter 2009 > ASPCA Announces New TNR Scheduling Center

ASPCA Announces New TNR Scheduling Center

by Joel Lopez, ASPCA

Dear NYC Animal Rescuers:

We hope your 2009 has gotten off to as an exciting start as ours has!

We are reaching out to you for a couple of reasons. First, we heard your feedback loud and clear that the ASPCA Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinics needed to provide more capacity for TNR. We are happy to say that we have expanded TNR capacity significantly! We have more trucks going out every day! Now it's your turn: all active rescuers, please reach out to the TNR Scheduling Center at (877) SPAY-NYC and start booking appointments. We are thrilled to provide you with more resources — now it's up to you to do the rest. We want to continue to offer this expanded capacity so please, contact (877) SPAY-NYC (877-772-9692) to reach someone live today. We will monitor the next few months and adjust clinic availability appropriately, so be sure to book your appointments!!

Talk with someone live at the following times:

2:00–8:00 p.m. – Monday-Friday

10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. – Saturdays

Second, the ASPCA Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinics realize how important it is to provide free spay/neuter services to the TNR and rescue groups in our community. In order to continue to offer spay/neuter services for free we have had to adjust the prices for other services available for purchase on the clinics. It was not an easy decision. However, our prices have not changed in more than five years and in many cases, the cost of products was higher than the fee we were charging. In order to keep the program sustainable and continue to offer free spay/neuter, this was a necessary change.

Andrea Orlando-Holder and Gilda Provenzano of Slope Street Cats are just two of the many feral colony caretakers who have used the valuable services provided by the ASPCA Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinic. (Photo by Slope Street Cats)

Andrea Orlando-Holder and Gilda Provenzano of Slope

Street Cats are just two of the many feral colony caretakers

who have used the valuable services provided by the

ASPCA Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinic.

Photo by Slope Street Cats

The pricing changes have also affected NYC residents who own pets. Spay/neuter services will remain free for those residents on public assistance, and they've expanded! In addition to spay/neuter and rabies vaccine, we are now including microchipping and other small services in the package. The forms of public assistance the program accepts are: Medicaid benefit card; proof of TANF, Medicare, disability, or SSI; food stamps; or a rent receipt from public housing. Unfortunately, the program does not accept unemployment at this time. For those pet parents not on public assistance, a fee of $75 is now required. Though higher than the previous $25, this all-inclusive flat fee includes all the services in the package and is one of the lowest-cost spay/neuter options anywhere.

Please find the attached "Rescuer User Agreement." Please read the entire document and carefully review page 4 for a list of the updated prices. We ask all rescuers sign the "Rescuer User Agreement" and send the completed first and last page to us here:

Kimberly Smith

ASPCA Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinics

424 East 92nd Street

New York, NY 10128

We appreciate your support!

Photos courtesy of Meredith Weiss and NeighborhoodCats, unless otherwise noted

NYC Feral Cat Initiative • c/o Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals • 244 Fifth Avenue, Suite R290 • New York, NY 10001 • (212) 330-0033 • info@NYCFeralCat.org