MORGANTOWN — The No. 1 reason pets die in West Virginia is shelter euthanasia.
With the help of the Mountaineer Spay Neuter Assistance Program (M-SNAP), the number of animals euthanized in Monongalia County has decreased.
Through the spay and neuter voucher program, pets can be “fixed” with the funds supplied to M-SNAP.
For 11 years now, M-SNAP has celebrated World Spay Day each February. From 4 -6 p.m. Tuesday, Mon County residents can receive the vouchers needed to spay or neuter their pets.
Nancy Young, an M-SNAP volunteer, said the nonprofit organization has been fortunate to receive a grant from the Peterman Foundation to help with the costs of these procedures each year. The Petermans were Morgantown residents who long advocated for animals.
“While the world is celebrating World Spay Day, M-SNAP is celebrating Spay Day in Mon County by deviating from our normal process of mailing vouchers to people to actually issuing spay/neuter vouchers to Mon County residents who want to help us reduce pet overpopulation,” Young said.
The usual process of obtaining a voucher from M-SNAP is to call and leave a message. A volunteer calls back to get information about your pet and mails a voucher to you.
“We are actually going to have our volunteers at the Morgantown Mall, really close to ReTails, our little thrift store, and we are going to do that process in person,” Young said.
Any Mon County resident can obtain these vouchers that will cover the cost of their pet’s surgery and a rabies shot.
“Our mission is to reduce the number of animals that are dying in our county shelter,” Young said.
The goal is to keep the animals from ending up at the Monongalia Canine Adoption Center, where euthanasia is possible.
“When we started, we decided we were going to be all about the animals and that we were going to concentrate on the population of animals that end up at that county shelter,” Young said.
She said pet overpopulation happens for two reasons: One, people allow their pets to reproduce with little chance of finding homes; and two, pets are surrendered to the shelter. The shelter cannot refuse an animal, so when it is full, shelter workers have to make tough decisions.
“We would like Mon County to be a no-kill county. We would like for people to control the indiscriminate breeding so that we don’t have animals dying at our county shelter every year,” she said.
Since M-SNAP started in 2008, the number of pets being euthanized in shelters decreased by over 50 percent. Young said they still have a long way to go, but M-SNAP can make a difference by helping people by providing the vouchers and also providing education.
“We certainly couldn’t send out 1,500 vouchers every year without wonderful support from our community,” Young said.
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