Why get your cats spayed or neutered? Just ask Tammy Book, who brought three cats to Newtown's mobile spay-and-neuter clinic in Sandy Hook Tuesday. (That's a large van with all the necessary facilities to get cats "fixed" on the go.)
"We have a large colony of cats living behind our property," she said. When they kept having kittens, she and her husband decided to take action.
"We wanted to be part of the solution, not the problem," said Book.
As they've been doing for about seven years, the Spay and Neuter Association of Newtown brought in Westbrook-based T.E.A.M. (Tait's Every Animal Matters) and their mobile spay/neuter clinic for a day of low-cost, low-pressure cat spaying and neutering.
While the Newtown Spay and Neuter Association serves clients year-round, events like this one usually result in about 40 newly spayed cats. That's over 200 cats in the years since the annual event began, says the organization's recording secretary Linda Stott.
"We've been working in Newtown for about 25 years," Stott said -- and the town has benefitted from their work.
"Spaying and neutering prevents the population of unwanted pets and animals," she said. "There are cat colonies here and there, but all the different groups have been able to help each other."
Residents dropped off their cats in the morning and picked them up at about 4:00 p.m. In that time, workers spayed 35 cats, organizers say.
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