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Spaying female cats before “kitten season”
Kitten season: the spring and summer months when shelters and rescues are flooded with litters of kittens.
Are
you looking for a proactive way to head off this disheartening time of
year? Read on for a smart, creative, and inexpensive strategy that
makes a difference. |
Why Do It?
Inspired by an idea from No More Homeless Pets in Utah, Humane Ohio
created a highly successful campaign to spay female cats before they
come into heat. Aimee St. Arnaud, Executive Director of Humane Ohio,
shared their process for other spay/neuter organizations to follow.
A
successful Beat the Heat campaign can yield multiple benefits for the
cats, their owners, your organization, and your community:
- A well-timed effort prevents hundreds — even thousands of kittens — from being born to face an uncertain future.
- Spayed female cats are more likely to live healthier lives and are less likely to be abandoned or surrendered by their owners.
- Eye-catching, well-distributed advertisements can increase your community's awareness of your organization and its services.
- Cat owners can obtain high-quality spay surgery for their pets at a very reasonable cost.
- The campaign may also prompt owners of animals not eligible
for the promotion to schedule surgery for their animals. (Humane Ohio
received many calls during the promotion asking about surgery for male
cats and for male and female dogs.)
What You'll Need
- Funds to offset the discounted price for the surgeries
- A plan for how you'll promote your campaign
- An eye-catching advertisement
- Funds to design and produce the advertising materials
- Staff and volunteers to handle phone calls, scheduling, and the high volume of surgeries
What You'll Do
- Determine the number of surgeries you can perform during the
campaign and the amount you will charge for the surgeries. Humane Ohio,
a high-quality, high-volume spay/neuter clinic, usually charges $45 for
a cat spay. They charged clients only $20 for the surgery, and used a
grant from the Ohio Pet Fund to make up the difference. With the grant,
they could alter 220 cats at $20 each without losing money on their
services.
- Design and produce your advertising materials. Humane Ohio
worked with their usual designer, Jennifer Esway of The Ad Lab, who
created the artwork they produced as a poster and flyer. The artwork
was also available as a PDF on the Humane Ohio website.
- Determine how you'll reach your target audience. Humane Ohio used several methods to promote Beat the Heat, all of them free:
- Beat the Heat flyers were handed out at the registers of local pet
supply stores. Humane Ohio has a good relationship with this local
chain, and the stores frequently help with promotions.
- Local TV and radio stations did free on-air "spots" about the campaign.
- Humane Ohio substituted the Beat the Heat promotion for its
usually weekly classified ad in the local paper. The classified ad is
part of Humane Ohio's regular overhead, and there was no additional
cost to run different ad copy for a few weeks.
- Humane Ohio advertised on their own website. Visitors to the
site could also download the Beat the Heat flyer to print and
distribute copies if they wished.
- Begin promoting the campaign in January, or February at the
latest. Ideally, you'll want to spay the cats before they're pregnant.
Cats can be safely spayed during pregnancy, but the surgery performed
during late pregnancy is more complicated than a standard spay, and
requires surgical skill and supportive medical care as well. If your
campaign doesn't get rolling until March, the number of pregnant cats
will be higher.
- Keep track of your numbers.
- Ask callers how they heard about your campaign. Then you'll know where and how to promote it next year.
- Record the number of surgeries related to the campaign, and
indicate whether cats were in heat or pregnant. This helps you
determine the best timing of the campaign. In addition, having good
numbers for your program is always helpful for attracting more funding.
- If you targeted the campaign to a specific human population,
ask for demographic information about your clients to determine whether
you did reach your desired audience.
What You Can Achieve
Humane Ohio was delighted with the results of their Beat the Heat campaign:
- The clinic received 1200 calls through the campaign, about double their usual call volume.
- They learned that the two most "low-tech" forms of
advertising — the flyers and the newspaper — classified reached the
most clients.
- Humane Ohio spayed 220 cats in 3 1/2 weeks. Many of these cats were already in heat.
Resource That Will Help
Here are some additional resources to help you plan your own Beat
the Heat campaign or other spay/neuter initiatives and promotions:
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