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Dog sterilization services down to one vet
The dog sterilization campaign in Kagman slowed down after one of Animal Balance’s veterinarians fell ill, resulting in some pet owners being turned away the past several days.
Until Tuesday, May 26, Animal Balance had been using two veterinarians.
“She is still ill and is not able to do any surgeries. She is still recovering,” said Animal Balance founder and director Emma Clifford.
For the past three days, Dr. Byron Maas has been the only veterinarian seeing the dogs being brought in. He was able to attend to a total of 107 dogs for three days straight while his colleague was ill.
“He is trying his best and he really can’t do a lot. He is overwhelmed and had to turn some community members way,” Clifford said.
“We apologize for the inconvenience and thank the community for their understanding. Our other veterinarian has been in the hospital three times and she is in a lot of pain and we only had one and has been doing a lot of surgeries for a small amount of time,” she added.
Clifford said that Animal Balance would do its best to bring back the dog sterilization services to Saipan in October. On behalf of Animal Balance, she urged the community to step forward and help the Saipan Mayor’s Office raise funds and bring in volunteers so that services will be brought back in October.
Henry Hofschneider, special assistant for the Mayor’s Office, also extended his apologies to the community on behalf of Mayor David M. Apatang for the inconvenience of some community members who were turned away.
“The veterinarian that fell ill was beyond our control and she needs rest. We couldn’t do anything about it and the service is overbooked for one veterinarian only. So we apologize for the inconvenience,” Hofschneider said.
“We will be meeting with Animal Balance and sit down to talk about another sterilization service this October and the continuing years. We understand that people were looking forward to this,” he added.
Dog control program manager Spencer Marchadesch said there would be no sterilization services today because they are overbooked.
“We’re now focusing on the shelter animals and adoptions. We urge the community to avail of the adoption program in Lower Base,” he said.
