Hope On a Sliding Scale: How Pay-What-You-Can Surgeries Keep Families Together

The many moods of Mona the Chihuahua, Photo - Fix Our Ferals

When Mona, a tiny tricolor Chihuahua, began to lose weight and become lethargic, her owner Anna* naturally worried. But when Mona began to vomit blood, Anna rushed her to the local emergency vet. There, Mona was diagnosed with intussusception, a rare and serious disorder in which one part of the intestine slides inside an adjacent part.

Anna, a college student at San Jose State, wasn’t expecting her otherwise healthy young dog to need an urgent, expensive surgery, and there was no way she could afford the full market rate for such a procedure. “I felt defeated,” Anna said. Luckily, the emergency vet put Anna in touch with us at Fix Our Ferals. 

Most of us who have companion animals have faced vet bills that were bigger than expected, and we may have had to stretch our budgets pretty hard to pay them. We recognize that it’s a privilege to have the discretionary income to provide our pets with veterinary care, whether preventative or critical. But many Bay Area residents have dogs and cats whom they love and want to provide for, but paying for life-saving surgeries - or even basic spaying or neutering - just isn’t possible. 

Our goal at Fix Our Ferals is to keep our community’s dogs and cats healthy and with the people who love them by providing veterinary surgery regardless of a guardian’s financial situation. Our services are offered on a sliding scale or pay-what-you-can basis. Almost all of our clients do contribute financially to the best of their abilities, but no one is turned away for lack of funds.

Fix Our Ferals was founded in Berkeley in 1998 as a volunteer-run agency focused on peer-to-peer training for the trap-neuter-return (TNR) of community cats. This low-cost, high-quality, high-volume spay/neuter program for cats is still a big part of what we do, but in response to community needs, the scope of our services shifted. While other local organizations began to offer TNR assistance, we saw a growing community need for affordable surgical services that went beyond spaying and neutering and that would include animals in loving homes, not just ferals. So, in 2012, we opened our current brick-and-mortar facility in a busy Richmond neighborhood. Five years later, in 2017, we expanded our practice to include dogs as well as cats.

We now offer a wide range of other essential, time-sensitive surgeries that keep human–animal families together and often save lives. Many of the urgent surgeries we perform address health problems that would have been prevented by earlier spaying or neutering. These problems -  including mammary tumors and pyometra (an infected uterus) in female animals and testicular tumors and perineal hernias in male animals - can be life threatening.

Pet guardians usually find us by referral, sometimes from other veterinarians, as Anna did, and sometimes from other animal welfare groups. We collaborate with many different organizations to find the best options for care for the animals that visit us. In Mona’s case, we were able to secure a grant from San Francisco Aid for Animals to help offset our costs. We also work with municipal shelters and animal control agencies. Our low-cost surgeries help all of these groups better serve their clients. Animals with homes are able to avoid being surrendered to the shelter system or being euthanized for financial reasons. Animals waiting for adoption are spayed or neutered, and often have other issues addressed, so they can find their forever homes as soon as possible.

 We truly value financial contributions from guardians for their pets’ care, but they do not cover our organization’s operating costs. Our work is sustained by donations from individual animal lovers. Our objective is always to see more animals healthy and happy, in their homes with the people who love them.

 Today Anna says, “Mona is full of life. She acts as our little bodyguard sitting at a window all day watching for 'intruders.' She brings her toys when she meets new people and is just a ball full of energy and life. The grant helped me in more ways than you know and for that I have no words to express the gratitude and overwhelming peace it brought me. Your work is literally a godsend and very much appreciated, and for that I thank everyone who was involved in her recovery.”

*Our client’s name has been changed to preserve her privacy. Her story is shared with permission.