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City of Seattle
Gregory J. Nickels, Mayor
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NEWS ADVISORY
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| SUBJECT: Seattle Animal Shelter supports Spay Day 2009
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
2/17/2009 2:30:00 PM |
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Don Jordan (206)386-4286
(206) 953-2529 (Cell)
Kara Main-Hester (206) 386-4293
(206)255-9073 (Cell)
Katherine Schubert-Knapp (206) 684-0909
Kathy Sugiyama (206) 684-0909
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Seattle Animal Shelter supports Spay Day 2009
Free spay and neuter certificates available the week of Feb. 23, 2009
SEATTLE — To commemorate Feb. 24 as Spay Day USA, for the entire week of Feb. 23 through March 2, the Seattle Animal Shelter will offer certificates for free spaying and neutering to pet owners in need of financial assistance to have their pets sterilized. This offer ends at 5 p.m., Monday, March 2. For more information, call (206) 386-PETS (7387) or visit www.seattleanimalshelterorg.
This special offer commemorates the 15th anniversary of “Spay Day USA,” a national campaign sponsored by the Doris Day Animal Foundation to help reduce companion animal overpopulation.
“Thousands of animals must be euthanized each year simply because there are not enough homes for them all,” says Seattle Animal Shelter Director Don Jordan. “We can help address this problem by spaying and neutering companion animals. By ending unwanted births, we reduce the needless suffering of homeless animals and ultimately save taxpayers money.”
Donations to the city’s “Pet Population Control Fund” pay for this incentive for pet owners to have their pets sterilized. The fund also helps pay for spaying and neutering pets owned by low-income, elderly, disabled, homeless citizens or other people who would otherwise not be able to afford the cost of sterilizing their pets.
There are several ways you can celebrate Spay Day.
· You may donate to the “Pet Population Control Fund” at the Seattle Animal Shelter to help pay for the certificates.
· You and your pet can enter the Spay Day Online Pet Photo Contest and have a chance to win great prizes. For more information about the contest and about other Spay Day activities, go to the Humane Society of the United States Web site: humanesociety.org/spayday
· Friends and family – even if they don’t have pets -- can vote for your pet. You can even add a vote button for your pet to your Facebook page. Each vote costs just $1, which will be donated to the Seattle Animal Shelter Spay/Neuter Clinic and used to provide spay/neuter surgeries after Spay Day is over.
· Turn in a litter. As part of an ongoing program, anyone who turns in a litter of puppies or kittens to the Seattle Animal Shelter throughout the entire year is eligible for a free spay or neuter for the parent animal(s). The shelter guarantees the adoption of these kittens and puppies.
· Have an animal spayed or neutered -- your pet; a free-roaming cat; a needy neighbor’s pet; or a shelter animal awaiting adoption.
Spay Day USA is America’s first and only national day of action to promote the spaying or neutering of pets. During Spay Day USA, veterinarians and their staffs, animal welfare professionals, business owners, and concerned citizens join forces nationwide to spay or neuter as many animals as possible, and to promote spaying/neutering as an essential component of good pet health care, in addition to being an effective and humane means of decreasing euthanasia of homeless animals in shelters.
“As long as people continue to donate to this fund, the offer will continue,” Jordan says. “We want to discourage the sad practice of leaving boxes of puppies and kittens on the sides of roads, in front of grocery stores or discarding them in garbage cans and dumpsters. If people bring these litters to the Seattle Animal Shelter instead, we can have them adopted by qualified, loving owners and help improve their quality of life,” adds Jordan.
All animals adopted from the shelter are spayed or neutered before they leave the shelter.
For more information about Spay Day Seattle, to make a donation to the Pet Population Control Fund, or to learn more about other Seattle Animal Shelter services, call (206) 386-PETS (7387), or visit www.seattleanimalshelterorg.
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