The Good News!
Numbers since clinic opening
6000 surgeries
10,000 vaccines
700 TNR (trap, neuter and return)
10 transports
8 animal welfare organizations
Community microchip scanning station in front of Taos Police Department
Staff Spotlight: Dedication Behind the Scenes
Who is that magic person who keeps Spay Taos running smoothly? You may see a flash wearing a smile zip past you. You may hear a friendly, patient voice explaining after-care instructions. Who is that magician comforting a scared puppy? You may wonder how does this all run so well with seemingly little effort.
Kat Laake is that magician. She honed her skills as office manager at Stray Hearts Animal Shelter where she dealt with daily chaos. Running the office at Spay Taos is a more organized chaos with a narrower focus on spay and neuter, but the job still requires fast thinking and multi tasking just about every minute.
We don’t know how we survived without Kat but now that she’s here we are grateful every day.
Kat multitasking
Kat going above and beyond
(installing laundry towers and researching
how not to get stuck behind them forever)
Collaboration is the Key to Success
Spay Taos is collaborating with Stray Hearts Animal Shelter and SAFE Pet Partners in a joint grant application. Addressing these challenges requires more than the emergency sheltering of animals after problems have become overwhelming. Building on the established relationship, Spay Taos, SAFE Pet Partners, and Stray Hearts Animal Shelter, with funding from the Leslie L. Alexander Foundation, will create a continuum-of-care that supports animals and their families in Taos County through prevention, intervention, sheltering, and ultimately rehoming and adoption if necessary. The partnership will build on the strengths of three established organizations who are ready to meet the animal welfare challenges in our community.
By connecting the strengths of three organizations with complementary roles and addressing the full spectrum of need, this collaborative initiative provides a comprehensive community-based approach that reaches more families earlier, reduces barriers to care, safeguards the human-animal bond, and improves outcomes.
As the stray animal population has exploded, several locals have formed nonprofit organizations to raise the funds to rescue, rehabilitate, and re-home the homeless animals. Paws to the Wall has set records for the number of animals helped. Emi Wall, Executive Director, has brought in over 100 animals for spay/neuter, vaccines, wound care, parasite treatments, and even a porcupine quill removal. She personally helped rescue 12 dogs from a neighbor’s house fire.
Here is a statement from Emi:
"Our partnership with Spay Taos is absolutely essential for our work saving stray and abandoned animals in Taos County. Without them, the number of animals we’ve had spayed and neutered at a regular vet clinic would’ve cost well over $30,000 which just wouldn’t be possible for a tiny nonprofit running solely on community support. Instead, we are able to use our very limited funds on things like life-saving emergency care for animals we find injured and/or sick, such as Etta, the feral cattle dog who suffered a gunshot wound to the head and is now recovering wonderfully. We are so grateful that because of their services, spay/neuter, vaccination and microchipping are all part of our standard intake procedure and we’re able to provide top of the line care to all the animals that come into the rescue."
Your Support Matters