NEWS & EVENTS
History & Mission
According to SpayUSA, every day over 70,000 puppies and kittens born in the United States, compared to only 10,000 humans. Over half of those are unintended litters. As long as these unwanted litters continue, there will be neglected, abused, and abandoned dogs and cats. As a result of this uncontrolled reproduction, over 8 million healthy or treatable dogs and cats enter U.S. shelters every year. Over 4 million of those are not lucky enough to be quickly adopted and are euthanized.
Spay/Neuter is the Solution.
By preventing unwanted litters from ever being born, fewer unwanted litters are born and therefore fewer homeless dogs and cats end up in over-burdened shelters where they face euthanasia.
Spay/Neuter Benefits the Community.
Stray and roaming animals can be dangerous to the community; they may bite and attack other pets and people and cause vehicular accidents by running across roads. Communities spend millions of dollars to control unwanted animals, including the fees of dog wardens and the costs to collect, house and feed the homeless animals. According to the Humane Society of the United States, it costs an average of $176 to collect, shelter and euthanize a single animal. In Hamilton County alone, over $1 million is spent annually on animal control and dog warden services. This does not include indirect amounts spent by our health, fire and police departments on animal-related issues and by our courts on animal abuse/neglect cases. So, even if you don’t own a pet, you still pay for this. And, since it is money spent to treat symptoms and not causes, you’ll pay for it again year after year.
Our Story
UCAN was founded in 2001, to stop the endless cycle of unwanted births and euthanasia. The two main reasons people do not sterilize their pets are cost and lack of access to spay/neuter services. UCAN solves both of these issues. We provide low-cost spay/neuter services and free transports to our clinic from several locations in Southwest Ohio, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana.
Our initial efforts focused on funding a voucher program which partnered with area veterinarians. The program resulted in the sterilization of nearly 1,000 animals, but the impact was clearly not great enough. So, in 2007, UCAN opened its own nonprofit high-volume, low-cost spay/neuter clinic on West 8th Street in Queensgate. The clinic is based on the North Carolina Humane Alliance's high-volume, high-quality, low-cost model which has been implemented successfully in other communities around the country.
In 2014, thanks to a generous capital grant from The Joanie Bernard Foundation, UCAN purchased its own clinic facility, located at 2830 Colerain Avenue, which opened on June 30, 2014.
Since April 2007, UCAN has performed over 76,000 spay/neuter surgeries, preventing hundreds of thousands of unwanted dogs and cats from being born into abuse, neglect and euthanasia.
In 2005, with the help of locally based Macy’s, Inc., UCAN opened its Pedigree furniture and accessories consignment store to be an ongoing funding source for the clinic, and to help bridge the gap between its low-cost fees and the actual cost to operate the clinic. The store is now called Wags to Riches, and is located at 9697 Kenwood Road, Blue Ash, Ohio 45242.
How We Know That What We Do Works...
Numerous studies show that the intake rate at shelters significantly decrease when low-cost spay/neuter services are available in the community.
After 4 years of using UCAN’s free transport service, the Grant County Animal Shelter reduced its intake of both dogs and cats by more than half!
The findings and statistics published by the No Kill Advocacy Center and in Nathan Winograd’s book, Redemption, demonstrate the substantial impact that low-cost spay/neuter has on shelter intake and euthanasia rates.