A Vital Tool for Saving Lives
At Blue Mountain Humane Society, our mission is to end pet overpopulation and homelessness in our region. A key part of achieving this mission is providing high-quality, high-volume spay/neuter services — both for the pets in our care as well as for pets owned by community members and partner organizations.
Toward this end, a recent $7,000 grant from the Banfield Foundation has allowed us to purchase a new autoclave sterilizer for our surgery suite. This vital piece of equipment allows us to safely sterilize the surgical packs, drapes, gauze, and instruments used in spay/neuter surgeries and other veterinary procedures.
Keeping Up with Demand
Our existing autoclave had become outdated and unreliable, frequently breaking down and requiring us to outsource sterilization services. This severely limited the number of surgeries our hard-working veterinary team could perform. With this new, state-of-the-art M-11 autoclave, we can efficiently sterilize equipment in-house and maximize our surgical capacity.
In 2023, our surgery team performed over 1,600 spay/neuter procedures! With the new autoclave, we estimate we can provide these life-saving and life-changing services for approximately 16,000 pets over the next five years.
Serving Pets and People
The autoclave will benefit pets and people throughout our community in many ways:
Shelter pets will be spayed/neutered prior to adoption, preventing future litters.
Community members can access low-cost spay/neuter through programs like Mama's Last Litter.
Feral cat colonies can be humanely managed through our Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) program.
We can continue providing spay/neuter services for pets from other shelters and rescues.
In addition to spay/neuter, the new equipment will allow our veterinary staff to more efficiently sterilize packs for other procedures like dentals, amputations, and wound care.
A Force-Multiplier
This grant from the Banfield Foundation is truly a force-multiplier for our mission. By upgrading this key piece of equipment, we can maximize our impact and bring affordable veterinary services to more pets and people in need across the Walla Walla Valley.
We are immensely grateful to the Banfield Foundation for their generous support.
