Spay/Panama improves life for cats and dogs

Spay/Panama makes a difference for this country's cats and dogs

story and photos by Eric Jackson

What’s a PanCanal chief financial planning officer to do after she retires?

It wasn’t such a hard decision for Patricia Chan. “I have always loved animals,” she said, “and I wanted to work with them.” Looking about her at the exploding population of stray cats and dogs living on the streets of Panama, she saw a need, and with her own resources and organizational abilities she dedicated herself to alleviating it.

With a small group of volunteers she opened Spay/Panama and in 2002 began to offer low-cost neutering services for cats and dogs. The project grew, and Chan bought an old house in Bethania, demolished it and built a modern facility centered around a well-equipped veterinary operating room.

Networking with other groups and institutions, Spay/Panama carved out a unique niche among this country’s many animal lovers. The facility isn’t a shelter or a clinic as such. Every Wednesday and Saturday cats and dogs --- mainly cats --- are sterilized. Generally the males are released after one day, while the females are kept for five days to recover.

A lot of these animals are pets brought in and then taken home by the people who keep them. Many others, however, are nobody’s pet.

Working with people who feed stray cats, trappers are sent out to neighborhoods with “have a heart” cage traps and the strays are captured, taken to Spay/Panama, neutered, dewormed, marked with a notch in the ear and, if possible, given to people who are willing and able to adopt them. But those who can’t be placed in homes are taken back to whence they came and released.

In this way, some 700 of the Casco Viejo’s cats have been sterilized, making a dent in the historic neighborhood’s stray animal population and improving living conditions for those still living on the streets.

Spay/Panama has developed a relationship with the nation’s prison system and police agencies. On the day this reporter visited, several cats who had been brought in by the PTJ were recovering from surgery. Last April, with help from US Embassy dependents, 31 cats and a dog at the Cecilia Orillac Women’s Penitentiary were neutered. An eight-person team, three of whom were veterinarians, caught and neutered four dogs and 10 cats the previous month at El Renacer Penitentiary in Gamboa.

A friendly black female who carried herself with pride came in from the Panama Canal Administration Building. “She thought she was security,” Chan said. “She patrolled the building, but then they didn’t want her around.” After recovery from her spaying surgery, she was bound for a new home.

Occasionally a sick or injured animal is nursed back to health before being adopted or released. When this reporter one cat covered with a light fuzz was recovering from a severe case of mange, and another male was in a conical collar after having a seriously infected eye removed. Spay/Panama will also occasionally provide medicines for people who feed street animals that become ill.

This little guy had a severe hernia, which was discovered when he was brought in for neutering and repaired.

What’s the biggest part of her work? “The most important thing is to teach people to take responsibility for their animals,” Chan said. People who feed outdoor cats who stop by their doorsteps as well as families who have pet cats need to realize that within a few years one female can have hundreds of thousands of descendents. “If you don’t neuter your cat, no matter how sincerely you try to find good homes for the kittens, sooner or later one of your cat’s offspring is going to end up in a dump.”

Another part of the public education task is just teaching people how to take care of cats and dogs --- things like what to feed them, their needs for water, shelter and exercise, and basic humane considerations. “Your dog is part of the family, and you wouldn’t chain a family member,” Chan pleads.

It costs money to spay a dog or cat, and Spay/Panama asks people who bring in animals to contribute. However, nobody is turned away due to inability to pay.

One might expect the Panama Canal’s top financial planner to keep careful records as well as run an economically tight ship, and that Pat Chan does. As of September 8, her records show that Spay/Panama had neutered 5,350 animals. Count many times that number of kittens and puppies that didn’t end up eating from garbage cans.

But resources do impose limitations, particularly when it comes to dogs. “Dogs make a lot of noise,” Chan noted, which keeps Spay/Panama, which is located in a residential neighborhood, from keeping many dogs around for as long as they are willing to help a cat. As much as the spay clinic does, it can only meet a small part of the need.

Spay/Panama not only has a well equipped and spotlessly clean operating room, but also a team of veterinarians who, unlike most of their peers, are trained at early sterilization, operating on kittens as young as six weeks old.

There are always a number of different tasks for volunteers to perform, and there’s always a need for supplies. Getting the word out to pet owners and extending the network among stray animal feeders involves the same sort of labor and skills used in organizing any other social movement. Spay/Panama maintains an organizational link with Spay/USA but doesn’t receive financing from the American organization.

If your family pet or that pitiful ball of fur who shows up on your doorstep to mooch a meal or a drink of water has not been neutered, call Spay/Panama at 261-5542. If you want to know more about the organization or have a helping hand to lend, visit their website at http://www.spaypanama.org.

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