The Spay Station, Tennessee's first mobile spay and neuter clinic, has stepped up its efforts in Macon County.

The thirty-foot mobile veterinary unit made its second visit to Lafayette this month. It was here last week and has visited the city monthly since October.

“We've easily doubled our number of visits from last year,” said Lucy Barrett, a veterinarian who works on the Spay Station.

New Leash On Life, a non-profit organization in Lebanon, operates the mobile clinic, which offers free spay and neuter services to low-income pet owners who demonstrate a financial need by participation in one of the following programs: food stamps, public housing, disability, WIC, Families First, SSI or Medicaid.

Their work in the local community is made possible in part through assistance from Mary Carroll, who owns and operates 2X2 Ranch and Refuge in Lafayette. Carroll uses grant money to fund half of the Spay Station's expenses for each of their visits, one of the stipulations they set forth for their out-of-area endeavors.

Carroll also operates a local low-cost spay and neuter program through 2X2 Ranch when grant funds are available. Dr. Lori Purchis at the Macon County Animal Hospital provides veterinary services for the program.

“We average about thirty-five each month,” said Carroll. “In the year coming up, I would like to at least double that number. It's got to be in a high volume.”

Carroll says that the only hope that some of the animals she takes in is for them to be transferred to shelters in New England to be adopted, where there are spay and neuter laws and animal overpopulation is not as bad.

“It's a sad state that other states have to clean up our mess,” she said.

To get an idea about the state of animal overpopulation, according to humanesociety.org, four million cats and dogs are euthanized in shelters every year.

As a result, many organizations including 2X2 Ranch and New Leash On Life are advocating high volume spay and neuter as the most effective and cost efficient method of animal population control, which addresses the root of the problem of overpopulation rather than the symptoms of it.

In addition to the Spay Station, New Leash On Life offers low-cost spay and neuter services through their Fix For Life clinic in Lebanon. Anyone can utilize the clinic as long as they are willing to pay a one-time fee. A list of fees and more information on New Leash On Life’s programs can be found at newleashonlife.org.

Fix For Life was modelled after the Humane Alliance clinic in Asheville, NC. Since Humane Alliance opened their clinic in 1994, the euthanasia rate at their local shelter is down seventy percent. In addition to saving the shelter money by eliminating the cost of euthanization, it also saves them money by reducing the number of animals they will have to care for as the result of the births of future, unwanted litters. Human Alliance’s website also states that less than five percent of shelter funds are spent on proactive programs that prevent animal overpopulation. More statistics on this program can be found at humanealliance.org.

Numbers for the Spay Station, as well as other local spay and neuter programs are as follows:

Spay Station: 444-1196

2X2 Ranch: 666-9047

Fix For Life: 453-2FIX

Other clinics can be found by calling the SPAY TN hotline at 1-888-SPAYME2 as well as searching the spay and neuter clinic database found at aspca.org.