A couple weeks ago I was contacted by a friend to do some cupcakes for Willamette Humane Society’s grand opening of the first low-cost/high quality spay and neuter clinic in this region. His lovely wife Jamie works there and was so kind as to give me a tour of the beautiful building and tell me about what they are accomplishing there.

I was so impressed by the efficiency and the care each pet gets with every visit. You can see that everyone who works there deeply cares for animals and truly believes in what they are doing.

I thought Jamie did such a great job of explaining, I asked her to write a little something to put in this blog.

“On January 11th, Willamette Humane Society opened our region’s first high volume, high quality, low cost spay/neuter clinic. After four years of planning and fund-raising, construction began in August 2009.

One initial vision for this clinic was a stand alone building on our shelter’s property. When the economy took a nosedive, there was an even more urgent need for the services our clinic would offer. In an effort to find a way to bring it into being sooner, a plan to remodel space within our shelter came about.

The clinic would be built into the space formerly housing our education hall and meeting room. With a small addition to accommodate the clinic’s reception area, this space was large enough to get the job done. A portion of our stray dog kennels was transformed into our new education hall and meeting room. When our shelter was built, WHS had the contract to house stray dogs for Marion County. When Marion County’s shelter opened a few years ago, our dog population dropped dramatically, so we could spare the 12 kennels it took to move the education hall and gain a spay/neuter clinic.

WHS’s Spay & Neuter Clinic provides services for three populations: our shelter, partner animal welfare agencies, and the general public. There are no income requirements that have to be met for people to use our clinic. As funding is available, we will be able to offer promotions allowing people who qualify to receive further discounts on surgery costs.

In our clinic’s opening months, we are doing 20-25 surgeries per day. When we are up to full speed, we will be doing 30-35 surgeries per day and 7500 surgeries per year. We are thankful for the mentorship of Humane Alliance’s National Spay/Neuter Response Team. This program allowed us to work with Humane Alliance’s staff to learn from the best in the field of high quality, high volume, affordable spay/neuter. We even go to send our clinic’s staff to Asheville, North Carolina to train with their team in their amazing facility.

We are putting to use all we have learned and have gotten the clinic off to a great start. And in just over three weeks we’ve done over 250 spays/neuters!”

– Jamie Fitzpatrick

Services & Fees

Willamette Humane Society can offer low-cost, affordable spay/neuter prices to pet owners because, as a 501c3 non profit organization, we receive private donations and grants that allow us to subsidize the true, higher cost of spay/neuter procedures and keep our prices low for our clients. We are not a full service veterinary clinic. We focus solely on spay/neuter surgeries, because our goal is to prevent unwanted litters and reduce the number of animals entering shelters.

Low-Cost Spay and Neuter Prices

Dogs
male: $58
female: $74

Cats
male: $35
female: $55
feral*: $43

Prices are not based on a pet’s weight. There are no additional charges for in-heat or pregnant animals.

I am so proud of what WHS has done. I wish every area offered such high quality and affordable animal care to help prevent unwanted litters and help find loving homes for animals in need.

Congratulations WHS!!