LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Amid heavy winter rains, the first Pet Fix animal clinic spayed and neutered 203 animals over three days, from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2.

Pet Fix is a volunteer-driven partnership of three local animal care nonprofit groups:Clearlake Animal Association, Dogwood Animal Rescue and SPCA of Lake County.

The community-led effort to provide low-cost and high-volume spay and neuter services aims to address Lake County’s long concerned “overpopulation crisis” of pets, according to Pet Fix’s Facebook page.

“It means there’s going to be less dumped and abandoned animals,” SPCA president Nancy Johnson said of the clinic’s impact.

It means less feral cats, roaming dogs, and less hit by cars, she added, “Because people aren’t dumping their unwanted kittens out in the middle of nowhere.”

In addition to the surgeries, every pet that was serviced got vaccinated — a rabies, a microchip, an FVRCP for cats, or the Parvo and DHPP for dogs. With reduced risks of certain cancers in dogs, these procedures would lead to healthier pets, Johnson said.

The first Pet Fix clinic service was by appointment only and applications opened on Jan.1. The poster said there would be a $25 copay for every eligible pet and the portal would close after signing up 100 cats and 300 dogs.

“We took 300 applications for dogs to fill the 100 appointments that we had available, because we have to have specific sizes and genders and whatnot to fill,” Johnson explained. “So we have a big enough mix to get the animals that we need to make the best roster,” Johnson explained.

By Jan. 22, the clinic had been fully booked and scheduled.

Over the three days of the clinic, three vets and six registered veterinary technicians from the contractor Animal Balance, together with 25 to 30 volunteers per day, carried out the services for 203 pets brought in by their owners, Johnson said. In total, about 50 volunteers participated.

The ‘scaled-up’ clinic work and the county’s vet shortage

Spaying and neutering 203 animals in three days was a stretch.

“It took SPCA three months last year to do that same amount,” Johnson told Lake County News.

“There's a lot of unthought of things everywhere, from extra oxygen to more copy paper and just all the extra things that come with running a clinic,” Johnson explained of the different aspects of the work that was being “scaled up.”

“We normally do 25 in a clinic four days a month. And to scale that up to 200 animals in three days, you forget what you don’t know,” she said with a chuckle.

Looking ahead, Johnson told Lake County News that Pet Fix has four more clinics planned for this year, which means a total of 1,000 pets could have their surgeries completed this year. Dates of future clinics have yet to be determined.

“Getting this high volume span neuter done does have an impact,” said Johnson, making reference to the concerns over vet shortage.

“We figured out there’s about 8,000 owned dogs and cats in the county,” she said, adding that there are about eight vets in the whole county. “There’s no way they can service 8,000 pets.”

Lake County Animal Control, the major sponsor of the first clinic, hasn’t had a vet for several years, Johnson noted. “They can’t get a vet. Nobody wants the job.”

Sometimes people do want to bring their pets for spay and neuter services but are not able to, “because either you can’t afford it or you can’t get an appointment,” she said.

At one point, SPCA was booked out three months in advance, and Johnson stopped taking appointments. “It just doesn’t do any good to schedule people six months from now, right?”

At SPCA, the standard procedures may cost between $125 for neuter of a male dog under 50 lbs, and up to $230 for spay of a female dog over 75 pounds, according to a Pet Fix Facebook post that provides information for applicants who didn’t get the appointment at the Pet Fix’s first clinic.

“If interested, you will be responsible for the full price of the SPCA clinic, which is still significantly less than full service veterinary offices,” the post said.

The joint effort

“It was almost a year in the making,” said Johnson of how the project came about with the three partnering agencies. “It was a lot of coordination and a lot of public help.”

Johnson explained the roles of the three partnering agencies: Dogwood and Clearlake Animal Association are handling fundraising efforts through grants and other means, whereas the SPCA contributes by providing the “boots on the ground.”

For the first clinic, Lake County Animal Care and Control contributed $37,000 to contract Animal Balance, while Kelseyville Lumber covered food costs, providing breakfast and lunch for more than 30 people each day.

The city of Clearlake donated $4,000 to purchase a new autoclave for sterilizing equipment. A couple months ago, a Facebook fundraiser for getting surgical instruments raised $2,500 in less than seven days.

The team created an Amazon wishlist of supplies and equipment and received generous donations from the community.

A fuller list of contributors can be found in SPCA’s Facebook post.

“Lake County has been amazing,” said Johnson of the community support.

So far, they have yet figured out the total value of all donations, she added.

The three-day program met with the new year’s rainstorms. Yet it was a success and a learning experience.

“We were out there in our rain slickers,” Johnson recalled. Still, “It went smoother than we expected.”

She credited Animal Balance’s check-in procedures for streamlining operations.

Learning how to do so many in such a short amount of time for Johnson was “an educational thing for us.”

When asked what they had learned, “they had a lot more surgical staff than we do; we have one vet,” she said in addition to the productive procedures.

Email staff reporter Lingzi Chen at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..