Cooper, a cat up for adoption at Seymour CARES.
SEYMOUR – The town’s animal shelter, Seymour CARES, is asking for the public’s help to ensure its cats and kittens can be spayed or neutered to prevent further overpopulation.
The nonprofit organization, which has a shelter at 115 Silvermine Road, put out a Facebook post on Aug. 13 with a donation link seeking assistance.
Longtime shelter volunteers and board members Teri Montana, Corliss Strumello and Abby Furfaro are hopeful donations can defray some of the costs.
Montana said the vet clinic Seymour CARES normally uses to have the surgical procedures done is short-staffed and had to cancel 12 of the appointments to spay or neuter the kittens currently housed at the shelter.
Montana said the cost to the shelter to spay or neuter is usually $85 per cat through a discount. Montana said it’s going to cost closer to $300 per cat for the procedures since their go-to vet is backed up.
She said before checking in with some private vet practices, she reached out to several clinics in the area and beyond, all of whom are booked solid and unable to help. Montana said the procedures need to be done as soon as possible to prevent unwanted pregnancies within the shelter.
Montana said the cat population is not easy to control, and shelters everywhere are full.
“This is not just an us problem,” Montana said. “People are dumping cats, not fixing them and every shelter is full. Everyone is so overwhelmed.”
Montana said volunteers at the area shelters network with each other and help each other out whenever possible. She said recent situations, like the hoarding situation where some 65 animals were discovered in dire conditions in a Woodbridge house over the weekend, will need help from everyone.
“We all need help,” Montana said. “The biggest problem is we need a low-cost spay and neuter clinic, but everyone is so busy, you can’t even get appointments.”
Montana said she may have a lead from DAWS (Danbury Animal Welfare Society) in helping with the 12 cancelled appointments, but likely at a higher cost than the $85 the shelter usually pays per spay and neuter. Montana said all the shelter’s rescues are spayed or neutered, vaccinated, de-wormed and given flea preventatives before they can be adopted.
Montana, a volunteer with the Seymour shelter since it opened in 2011, said she’s never seen such an uptick like now in overcrowding at the shelters and overpopulation of cats in all her years there.
“People move and they can’t take their cats to the new place, and the shelters are so full, so they’re just dumping them,” Montana said. “Your pet is for a lifetime, it’s not disposable. I urge people to spay and neuter your animals.”
Anyone who’d like to donate to Seymour CARES can do so online, or send them an email at seymourcares@yahoo.com.
