The first campaign was in 2004 and 55 cats (37 female and 18 male) were spayed/neutered!

Novembre 21st 2005 the second spay/neuter campaign for stray cats in Ladispoli started. The Town Council and the local Veterinary Services had been very impressed by our first visit in 2004 and decided to repeat the event in Ladispoli, a little town along the sea side north of Rome.

At 5 o’clock in the morning the mobile spay vehicle and the other little van of LEGA PRO ANIMALE, kindly donated by AISPA (the Anglo-Italian Society for the Protection of Animals), started packed with all what was needed for surgery on about 300 cats and 50 dogs. The preparations for a spay/neuter trip like this take lots of preparations: the medicine and supply needs to be ordered and listed, the linen (surgical drapes) to cover the animals during surgery need to be brought in the right shape, the 40 traps we have (kindly donated by the American organization FRIENDS OF ROMAN CATS to put on disposal to the local volunteers to catch the stray cats) needed to be numbered and catalogued and naturally the same number of cages for the postoperative care. On board had been Dorothea Friz, and Giuliano Santamaria (veterinarians of LEGA PRO ANIMALE) and Julie Beanlands, a British citizen who came especially for this event from England to volunteer, using part of her annual holidays.

We arrived late due to the Roman traffic in the morning, but we started work around 10:30am with the first cats who had been trapped already over night. The veterinary ambulance was parked outside Ladispoli in the yard of the Protezione Civile (Civil Services) and we could use their bathrooms and a big room to prepare the animals before surgery and keep them warm in their wake-up cages for one night. The marvellous volunteers of Ladispoli never got tired to provide new cats in traps (the little town was literally covered in cats), and were even very keen on feeding us delicious food. One of the volunteers offered three guest rooms in her house nearby to stay overnight.

During the first week a vet from the public veterinary services ROMA D came every morning to help during the campaign. One of the vets took care of anaesthesia of the animals and the other two did surgery. The operations finished on Friday night. Saturday morning the Town of  Ladispoli organized a meeting at the Town Hall open for the public. I gave a presentation about stray management, the participants had been very interested in. Right after we went back to Naples. I accompanied Julie Beanlands to the airport, she needed to go back to work. After a bit of rest on Sunday (answering the most important correspondence of one week, checking on problems in the centre with the staff, going for a walk with my own dogs who were very happy to see me once again) on Monday morning 5 o’clock Giuliano and me started again for Ladispoli, this time with a volunteer of LEGA PRO ANIMALE, Teresa. We stayed another three days until the cats did not go in the traps anymore, probably because of the very bad weather conditions.

All together on 7 working days we spayed/neutered 303 animals: 277 cats (163 female, 114 male) and 26 dogs (20 female and 6 male).

In conclusion I need to say that it is not enough to come once a year to spay/neuter the cats which can be caught. To see a difference in an area, to see the total number of cats dropped down, you need to work at least on 70 percent of all the cats (strays and private). We certainly did not reach this number. It would be convenient if the local state Veterinary Services finally start enforcing the law and offer free spaying/neutering of stray cats and those who belong to people with low income. Otherwise it would be sage to repeat a spay/neuter week in spring before the cats will start their heat cycles.

Dorothea Friz, DVM, president LEGA PRO ANIMALE

Posted 1/6/06