Hundreds of Northland animals are now desexed thanks to the SPCA Mobile Desexing Clinic

We are delighted to report that our SPCA Mobile Desexing Clinic has just completed a successful trip around Northland providing critical free services including desexing, microchipping, vaccinations as well as flea and worming treatments to cats and dogs.

With the service being mobile, we were able to reach the more remote locations in Northland where we see high numbers of stray cats and dogs, and communities that struggle to access veterinary care.

The SPCA Mobile Desexing Clinic visited Moerewa, Dargaville, Waimamaku, Rawene, Opononi, Ahipara and Pukenui. After weeks on the road, we have successfully desexed and microchipped 274 cats and dogs, vaccinated 255, and given flea and worm treatments to 584 animals.

SPCA National Desexing Programme Manager Rebecca Dobson is delighted with the result of this initiative, and says that SPCA offered this vital service free of charge to Northland pet owners to help combat the disproportionately large number of cats and dogs that haven’t been desexed.

“We see extremely high numbers of unwanted animals in Northland which directly impacts animal welfare. SPCA targeted this problem head-on by desexing hundreds of cats and dogs in communities where the need is high, to help bring down the rates of breeding and ultimately stopover a thousand unwanted kittens and puppies being born.”

Due to the overwhelming response from the community, we still have over 130 animals on our waiting list. We’re proactively supporting these pet owners to get their animals desexed through our desexing partnerships in Northland. Once these animals have been desexed, this will take the total to over 400 cats and dogs desexed as part of this initiative.

The take-up of this free service and the feedback from pet owners in Northland has been monumental, and further solidifies why this location remains a priority for desexing. We are delighted we could bring this service into the community and help so many animals and pet owners.

We've had some incredible feedback from pet owners who were able to use the services.

“This was such an amazing service! Living in a rural location it can be hard to access things. The desexing service coming directly to us made it so easy and convenient. The team on the day were so kind, professional and amazing. There is a real a problem up north with so many roaming stray animals, so this initiative is just perfect!” - Don, dog owner

“Checking our kitten in was a breeze and staff offered to do microchip, vaccination, flea and worm treatment on top of desexing. The staff showed care and compassion to each animal and their owner. I would highly recommend using this service as it serves to protect unwanted pregnancy in cats and dogs in our community.” - Michelle, cat owner

“Having been a judge at sheepdog trials for over 30 years, most of the dogs that compete are not desexed. Desexing does not alter their herding instinct or their incredible working ability and so getting them desexed is a no brainer, as it takes all the hassle and risk away. I would recommend this service to anyone within the rural, farming community where many dogs are not desexed. My nearest vet is 90 minutes away so having this service so come to us locally was great!” - Mike, dog owner

We would like to thank the local community for supporting us as well as our participating veterinary clinics.

Bay of Island Veterinary Services provided a wonderful team who worked in conjunction with SPCA staff for four weeks, and we could not have desexed as many animals as we did without them.

Top Vets provided us with much needed support when we were working in the Kaitaia region. Without these clinics, this campaign would not have been possible.

We would also like to acknowledge our friends at Purina who kindly donated 800 cat and dog food vouchers we could give to pet owners in the local community.