Frequently Asked Questions about the future clinic
- Who will operate the clinic?
The Ontario SPCA (OSPCA) will operate the clinic within its existing animal hospital in Newmarket. Spaycentral Toronto is raising start-up costs for the clinic and will continue to support fundraising efforts directed towards the clinic.
- How will the clinic be different from a regular vet?
The clinic will focus on spay/neuter surgery and will not offer wellness programs.
Prior to and during surgery, if veterinarians detect health issues that need addressing, written notations of these conditions will be given to the pet owner or guardian, so that the owner/guardian can address these issues with their local veterinarian.
All pet owners will be offered a list of their local veterinarians, within a number of kilometers of the pet owners residence determined by the pet owner. This list will be generated using the online Search functionality of Canadian Yellow Pages to which all vets have equal access.
- Which areas will be served by the clinic?
The clinic will serve all municipalities in the GTA. It will also accept animals from outside the GTA.
- How is the clinic going to be funded?
Pet overpopulation is at crisis levels in Ontario. The objective of the clinic is therefore to become self-financing as quickly as possible. The successful U.S. business model that the clinic will be adopting suggests this will be possible within the first year.
- Who will be able to bring pets to the clinic to be sterilized?
Individual pet owners, animal rescue groups, Humane Society branches, or municipal Animal Services departments. In short, anyone can bring a dog or cat to the clinic to be sterilized.
- What about stray animals who don't have owners?
Unwanted animals who end up in shelters can be brought to the clinic by shelter workers who will pay the fee for spay/neuter surgery. Other stray animals pose a business challenge, since they do not have owners or guardians to pay for their surgery. Surgery on unwanted animals who live on the streets (essentially stray or "feral" cats) will therefore need to be funded from a separate feral cat program. Spaycentral is already organizing a fundraising group for this program. Donations to the feral fixing program will be used exclusively to spay/neuter feral cats.
- Will transport assistance be available?
Spaycentral recognizes that transporting a pet can be challenging, and will support the OSPCA by operating a program in which individual volunteers drive animals to their clinic appointments.
To put transport assistance on a firmer footing however, Spaycentral will also implement a fundraising program whose aim will be to purchase a shuttle bus that will transport animals from designated locations in the GTA to the OSPCA clinic in Newmarket. The shuttle will benefit pet owners who do not own a car, and pet owners who wish to take advantage of this method of dropping off and picking up pets before/ after work.
- Who will be doing the surgery?
Spay/neuter surgery at the clinic will be performed by licensed veterinarians employed by the OSPCA. They will be assisted by licensed veterinary technicians.
- What opening times does the clinic plan to offer?
The ultimate objective is to operate on a schedule accommodating daytime, evening and weekend hours, in order to accommodate working pet owners and working volunteers who run animal rescue groups. To begin with, and in order to offer weekend appointments, the clinic will be open from Tuesday to Saturday.
- When will the clinic open?
The clinic is on track to open in 2008.
- Tell me more about the NSNRT program in which Spaycentral Toronto is participating.
NSNRT stands for the National Spay Neuter Response Team, which is an initiative of the Humane Alliance, located in Asheville, North Carolina. The Humane Alliance has developed a boilerplate program that organizations can use to fast-track the opening of spay/neuter clinics. The boilerplate is based on the principal that the clinics must be self-financing in order to stay open and achieve the type of aggressive spay/neuter surgery targets needed to make a real impact on pet overpopulation. Thirty-one US clinics already operate successfully on this clinic model
As well as operating its own spay/neuter clinic that sterilizes thousands of dogs and cats each year, the Humane Alliance also offers a valuable mentoring and training program to ensure organizations are as prepared as possible before opening for business. In the US, PetSmart Charities strongly supports the Humane Alliance mentoring and training program. Since Spaycentral is the first Canadian organization accepted into the program, PetSmart has therefore generously contributed to wards our fundraising campaign to raise funds for the first clinic of this type in Canada.
- How can I contact Spaycentral?
You may email us, or write to us at PO Box 38183, 550 Eglinton Avenue West, Toronto ON M5N 3A9.
- What is Spaycentral's charitable registration number?
Our Charitable Registration Number is 84515 0366 RR0001.