12/09/2025
Spaying and neutering are simple, routine surgeries that have a huge impact on pets, shelters, and communities.
1. Reduces Overpopulation
Millions of dogs and cats enter shelters every year, many born as accidental or unwanted litters. Spay/neuter prevents those litters before they start, easing overcrowding and reducing euthanasia rates.
2. Improves Animal Health
Females: Spaying prevents pyometra (a deadly uterine infection) and significantly reduces the risk of mammary cancer.
Males: Neutering prevents testicular cancer and lowers the risk of prostate problems.
Overall, sterilized pets tend to live longer, healthier lives.
3. Promotes Better Behavior
Reduces roaming, which decreases car accidents and lost pets.
Lowers aggression in many dogs and cats.
Decreases marking, yowling, and hormone-driven behaviors that can be difficult for owners.
4. Helps Build Stronger Human-Animal Bonds
Sterilized pets are often calmer, easier to train, and more focused on their families — improving the chance they’ll stay in their homes forever.
How and Why TNR Programs Work
TNR stands for Trap-Neuter-Return, a humane and effective approach for managing community (feral or free-roaming) cat populations.
1. How TNR Works
Trap: Humanely capture outdoor cats using safe, secure traps.
Neuter/Spay: Veterinary teams sterilize and vaccinate the cats (typically including a rabies vaccine and ear-tip for identification).
Return: Cats are released back to their familiar outdoor homes where they are monitored and cared for by community caregivers.
2. Why TNR Is Effective
Stops the reproductive cycle: A single unaltered female cat and her offspring can produce hundreds of cats in just a few years. Neutering one colony prevents exponential growth.
Reduces nuisance behaviors: Yowling, spraying, fighting, and mating behaviors dramatically decrease once a colony is sterilized.
Stabilizes and gradually reduces colony size: Over time, sterilized cats naturally age out without being replaced by new litters. Colonies become smaller, healthier, and more manageable.
Prevents the "vacuum effect": Removing cats completely from an area creates empty territory. New unaltered cats move in, reproduce, and the cycle starts over. TNR maintains stable, non-breeding cats who defend the territory, preventing new cats from taking over.
Improves overall community health: Vaccinated cats help reduce disease spread. Well-managed colonies are less disruptive and coexist more peacefully with people.
Community Cat Program: text the number 855-770-4689 with your name address and how many cats are needing TNR
