February is national spay and neuter awareness month, but San Luis Obispo County is struggling with a severe shortage of veterinarians to perform these important procedures.
Woods Humane Society has searched for nearly a year to hire a full-time veterinarian to help them meet the high demand for affordable spay and neuter surgeries in SLO County.
The nonprofit organization is still searching for qualified veterinarians to help them continue offering a high volume of sterilizations to manage pet populations and reduce the instances of unwanted litters of puppies and kittens in the county.
"If we stop that service for only a few weeks, then, of course, the animals will come into here, they get pregnant, and they have puppies and kittens, and then I think everybody by now knows that how many kittens and puppies can be produced from one animal," said CEO of Woods Humane Society, Neil Trent.
"It's a formula, so it starts off with one kitten or one dog and about ten years later, there's like 600,000 from that one animal, so it's ridiculously large figures. The moment we take our foot off the gas, the moment we stop providing that affordable service for the community we will start to see an increase in the population of animals," Trent said.
To learn more about applying for the open staff veterinarian position, visit woodshumanesociety.org.
