Vets: Reporting for Duty

 

At The Humane Society of the United States, we have assembled a highly qualified professional staff, with different types of expertise and experience, to conduct the vital work of animal protection. Among these experts, we are blessed to have a growing cohort of veterinarians who help to care for domesticated animals and wildlife.

Among the affiliates under The HSUS’ umbrella is the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association. Tomorrow, the HSVMA will help to provide direct care to animals with a World Spay Day spay/neuter clinic in Madison, Wis. HSVMA veterinarian Susan Krebsbach will conduct the event along with the local rescue group she founded, Dane County Friends of Ferals, and veterinary technicians, veterinary students and local vets, who will collaborate in a one day-initiative to sterilize feral, free-roaming and pet cats in Dane County.

Each day, though, veterinarians working for HSUS affiliates such as HSVMA and Humane Society International provide critical care and education to communities at home and abroad:

• Through its Rural Area Veterinary Services program, which combines community service and veterinary education, HSVMA helps rural communities where poverty and geographic isolation make regular veterinary care inaccessible. Last year alone, 35 small animal and equine field clinics held in the U.S. and abroad in Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia and Mexico helped train more than 300 veterinary students who hailed from vet schools across the U.S., Canada, Latin American and the United Kingdom. The free veterinary care made available to these communities provided treatment to 7,000 animals, at an estimated value of $1.3 million.
• HSI, in partnership with the government of Bhutan and the Bhutan Foundation, is engaged in a long-term program to help spay/neuter and vaccinate close to 50,000 dogs across Bhutan to humanely address the overpopulation of free-roaming dogs. We have launched similar programs in other countries in Asia, including Bangladesh and the Philippines.
• Our Pets for Life program has evolved into an exciting new community-outreach effort that uses innovative strategies to save pets by helping communities that—because of economic, social, or cultural factors—don’t have access to pet-care information, resources, or veterinary and related services, despite great need. Starting in the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, The HSUS has expanded this program into Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Los Angeles. The program is being duplicated in cities across the country with the help of PetSmart Charities.
• The HSUS is one of the largest and most diverse providers of direct animal care in the country. Veterinarians and technicians at our care centers provide relief and protection for sick, injured, abused and abandoned animals from coast to coast in the states of California, Florida, Massachusetts, Oregon and Texas.

Veterinarians and veterinary technicians should be in the forefront of animal protection. They can help The HSUS’ work to drive strong public policies for animals, advance our market–based and corporate outreach efforts concerning animal welfare reforms, educate the public about best practices, and most importantly, by doing what their vocation and compassionate nature has trained them to do: conduct hands-on work saving animal lives and alleviating suffering.

We are working to engage and recruit even more veterinary professionals, and we encourage you to enlist your animal caregivers to join the more than 5,200 veterinarians, technicians and assistants, and students of the HSVMA. To learn more, please visit HSVMA.org or e-mail info@hsvma.org to find out how you can provide a gift membership to the HSVMA.