By San Pancho Spay & Neuter Team
Photos courtesy of Alana Mac Blog
Hello Neighbors,
The time has come for San Pancho's Spring Spay/Neuter Clinic. The dates are from May 11th thru the 14th -- and will again be held at Casa Gente Grandes behind "Domino Park" on Tercer Mundo. 
We have traditionally had two clinics each year (one in the spring and one in the fall), but this year we decided to skip the spring clinic due to lack of sufficient funds and a shortage of volunteers. However, numerous Mexican families have approached us saying their neighborhoods have become overrun with young puppies and that there are too many un-neutered male dogs trolling the neighborhoods causing fights and injuring beloved pets. This is truly the first time the locals have shown us that they want to protect and care for their animals, and we feel we just cannot let them down. So, we WILL have the clinic -- but we need your help. If you plan to be here from May 11th through the 14th, please contact us if you are willing to volunteer your time. You don't necessarily have to work at the clinic if you are squeamish -- we have other opportunities. We have already received donated housing for the vets, so that is one less problem this year -- thank you. 1. Admission. We need someone to man the front desk to check in animals as they arrive. This requires someone to be available from 8:30AM until 1:00PM. This can be one person working Four days or Four people each working one day. If you can spare half a day to help, please contact us. 2. Recovery. We have had two Huichol girls helping us tend to the animals after surgery for almost 10 years -- and they do a  great job. But we can always use more help. Working recovery requires someone to check vital signs, keep the animal warm and alert the vets should there be a problem as they come out of the anesthesia. 3. Cleaning Instruments. We have an autoclave that sterilizes instruments, but first they must be hand-scrubbed. Its an easy job but a vitally important one that must be done several times throughout the day. 4. Set up of the clinic When the vets arrive late afternoon on 10th, the building must be as clean as possible. This requires moving some tables around, mopping the floor and then carrying in all the medicines, instruments, and cages. Then, every cage must be reassembled, thoroughly cleaned and lined with newspaper -- this takes a lot of time if there are only a few volunteers but goes very quickly when there are many. Can you spare some time on the 10th? 5. Tear down of the clinic. On the last day, we must breakdown the cages and then completely clean the building. This is very important because we really need this facility and, if we don't leave it better than we found it, we could find ourselves with nowhere to do our work come the fall. 6. Laundry. Every animal who goes to recovery is lying on clean towels and sheets. They are also covered with additional linens to keep them warm as they recover. This generates two bags of soiled linens each day of the clinic. In past years, we had laundry angels (thank you Bruce and Maggie); but they have moved inland and left us wondering how we are going to accomplish this task. If you have a washing machine and dryer, can you help us by doing a few loads of laundry each day? 7. Lunch -- we use a small portion of our donations to provide a good breakfast at Chalupa's for the volunteer vets, but we do not have the funds to provide them with lunch or dinner. If you can help by providing lunch one day, we would be very grateful. In the past people have brought wonderful sandwiches, salads or wraps for lunch and it was perfect, because it kept the vets from having to stop their momentum by leaving for lunch. If you'd like to sign up to bring lunch one day, please let us know. 8. Dinner -- In the past, some of the restaurants and taco stands have generously signed up to provide the vets with dinner, but it doesn't always work out and we end up having to pay for dinner with our donations. This year we were hoping to find volunteers who would bring by a dinner at the end of the day for the vets to take back to their temporary housing. Casseroles, pizza, sandwiches, burritos -- the vets are not picky and always grateful. 9. Funds -- we always need money for the clinic. Not only to make a donation to PEACE (the non-profit organization who sends the vets, the medicines, the supplies, the instruments, etc.), but also for all the other things we provide to keep this running. If we don't have to pay to have laundry done commercially and buy breakfast, lunch and dinner, our small fund will go further this time. By the way, the money donated does not only go to the clinic -- it goes to year- round care of animals that are hungry, sick or injured and their owners cannot afford proper nutrition or medical treatment. Caring for animals year-round is as important as the clinics to us. So if you'd like to make a donation, please contact us and we'll give you information on how to donate. 10. An alternative to cash donation. A lot of the donated money goes to supplies needed to run the clinic. We always need to make lots of copies of documents used at the clinic. Every animal has an intake and outtake form and instruction sheet to take home. We also buy water and soft drinks and coffee and sugar and milk, etc., to keep the vets and volunteers going. If you'd like to provide these things rather than cash, that would be great. Things we always need are: - Paper towels (two of the big packages from Sam's or Costco) - Two cases of bottled water for vets and volunteers - 4-5 gallons of bleach - A big bottle of cleaning solution (Fabuloso, Pinesol, etc.) - One bottle of dish washing detergent - A big can of ground coffee, sugar packets, a few boxes of milk - Two cases of mixed soft drinks - Orange juice - A garafon of water - Paper plates, plastic spoons, forks, knives - Afew boxes of gallon size zip lock bags As you can see, there are many ways to help and within everyone's budget. | 
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