Program Overview
During our spay and neuter clinics, our team sets up a MASH-style surgical unit within the community over a weekend to safely spay and neuter, tattoo, vaccinate, and deworm as many animals as we can. Our record is 546 surgeries at one clinic!
During a clinic weekend, community members may drop their pets off at the site, and we also send teams door to door to pick up pets with the owners’ permission and answer any questions they have. Each clinic follows all applicable Alberta Veterinary Medical Association (ABVMA) guidelines to ensure the health and safety of our patients.
It can take several clinics before we stabilize the pet population. Clinics must be repeated in order to keep pet population levels manageable. Check out this time lapse video of a clinic in action!
Starting up…
Canadian Animal Task Force, formerly the Alberta Spay Neuter Task Force, was incorporated as a non-profit society in 2007. We received charitable status in 2009. Our first “clinics” were simply transporting animals from communities to nearby vet clinics to be sterilized. In 2008, the Alberta Veterinary Medical Association (ABVMA) made a provision for clinics like ours to be held in the community by creating a special license for a “Temporary Veterinary Facility.” This allows us to hold clinics in community halls, gymnasiums or other venues. After receiving this permission and fundraising for our own surgical equipment, we held our very first on-site clinic for the Blood Tribe (Kainai Nation) in 2010.
Our Accomplishments
We have held over 60 on-site clinics in 24 First Nation Communities across Alberta. The Task Force has spayed and neutered, tattooed, vaccinated and dewormed over 16,000 cats and dogs and placed 6,300 relinquished or stray animals with our partner rescue groups to be rehomed.
Altogether, this means we have prevented the birth of thousands of potentially unwanted animals!