NYC vet aims to reduce the number of unwanted dogs through free spay/neuter


Posted on Aug 6, 2009
By Julia Szabo

Spay/neuter doesn't often make headlines, but veterinarian Dr. Andrew Kaplan is the talk of the town in his home base, New York City.  Many groups offer low-cost sterilization procedures, but Kaplan has arranged to provide free sterilization to all dogs (and cats) whose owners request it.

The vet founded a non-profit called The Toby Project named after his mutt Toby.  The Toby Project offers spay/neuter operations at no charge in its van, a fully-equipped mobile surgical unit.  There is absolutely no charge for this service, which is great news in this economic climate, yet the level of medical care is exactly the same as at Kaplan's state of the art veterinary hospital, City Veterinary Care.

Kaplan's goal is to combat pet overpopulation.  Eight years ago, Toby was just a puppy, but he faced euthanasia at the city shelter.  "He's such an amazing dog, and adopting him made me think, how many other dogs are dying?"  Kaplan says.  "Toby put a face on this problem for me; I knew I had to do something."

For his good works, Kaplan was named "New Yorker of the Week" by the news channel NY1.  To date, the Toby Project has spayed/neutered 961 animals.  Left to breed and multiply unchecked, that number of animals would have yielded as many as 15,376 offspring in one year and 64,387,000 in six years.

That means literally millions of unwanted dogs have successfully been prevented from being born.  And that's no small contribution to saving dog's lives in New York City, where literally tens of thousands are killed annually at the city shelter.  But there is still much more to be done, and Kaplan hopes that more organizations around the country will offer similar free sterilization procedures.  "We cannot adopt our way out of the pet overpopulation problem, and we cannot kill our way out of it," Kaplan says.  "The only way is to stop animals from breeding through spay/neuter."

To learn more about the Toby Project, visit their web site.

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