Crypton salutes leaders in spay/neuter movement

We suspected Dr. Andrew Kaplan had a good chance of becoming Crypton’s “pet” vet the minute we noticed the seats in the waiting room at his Manhattan practice, City Veterinary Care. They’re upholstered in Posey Lapis, and Material Dog Turquoise, which happen to coordinate smartly with the scrubs worn by the doc and his hardworking staff!


But just as Crypton combines style and substance, Dr. Kaplan’s HQ is much more than a good-looking space. It’s an animal hospital where rescued pets seeking a forever home are treated with the exact same TLC as the pets of A-list celebrity clients (they include Peter Yarrow, Kristen Chenoweth, David Hyde Pierce, and Bernadette Peters.)
That’s one reason Dr. Kaplan is called the Albert Schweitzer of homeless pets. Here’s another: In 2009, Dr. Kaplan launched a non-profit called The Toby Project. “Spay/Neuter Today, Save Thousands Tomorrow” is The Toby Project’s slogan. Its inspiration is Kaplan’s mutt Toby (pictured) and its mission is to solve the pet overpopulation problem in New York City by offering free and low-cost spay/neuter surgeries to pets of low-income families. With City Vet Care’s trademark TLC, these life-saving sterilization procedures are performed at zero cost to owners of mutts, pit bulls, and cats (purebred owners pay $75) on a mobile surgical van that drives out to economically challenged New York communities. To date, the Project has succeeded in sterilizing well over 2,000 pets!
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Teri Austin – you remember her as a star of TV’s “Knots Landing” – is more than a lovely, talented actress; she heads up The Amanda Foundation, a terrific non-profit that also offers free spay/neuter services to dogs and cats on its “Spaymobile.” In recognition of the sad fact that animal shelters are filled beyond capacity with unwanted pit bulls, several locations across the country offer to “fix” pit bulls for free – they include D.C.’s Washington Humane Society; East Bay Pit Fix in Oakland, CA; Animal Ark in Hastings, Humane Society of Southern Arizona; Boston’s Alliance for Animals; North County Humane Society in Jupiter, FL; and the Humane Society of New York.
Many organizations across the country offer low-cost dog and cat sterilization to economically challenged pet owners; to locate one near you, consult SPAY/USA. But one person’s definition of low-cost – even if it’s just $20 – might still be prohibitively expensive to someone else. Thanks to a grant from Maddie’s Fund, at Arizona’s Maricopa Animal Care & Control, they actually pay owners of pits and pit mixes $20 to have their dogs sterilized! More free and incentive-driven sterilization services are desperately needed to combat our country’s pet over population crisis.
Animal lovers look forward to a day when free spay/neuter programs become widely available to pet owners in need, regardless of breed. By reaching out to their communities and offering free spay/neuter to all who ask for it, The Toby Project and The Amanda Foundation are leading by example – and for that, we salute them.
Thank you to Melissa Wiedemann of Barking Photo for these terrific photographs – check out her web site to commission your pet’s portrait!
Posted by Julia Szabo.