President's Message

Dear SF/SPCA Friends,

Heading into the holiday season, we are close to celebrating our first year in the Leanne B. Roberts Animal Care Center. The time has passed quickly; it seems like just yesterday that we were opening our doors. As with any big change, we’ve faced challenges during these economic times, as we look to fulfill our mission and commitment. Additionally, in recent months questions have been raised in the press about the need for the new facility, and what kind of role it should play as a resource for the animals and people of our community.

Let me be clear, our mission is unchanged. In these tough economic times we’ve had to prioritize and focus our resources so we can help the greatest number of animals. Nevertheless, the Veterinary Hospital, Spay and Neuter Clinic and Shelter Medicine program continue to provide life-saving care for animals with and without homes. We face difficulties in carrying out our mission, but our dedicated staff and volunteers have taken on this challenge.

A feline health crisis that broke out this past summer is a good example of our team’s dedication. Each month we take in hundreds of cats from the department of San Francisco Animal Care and Control. Unfortunately, there was an outbreak of ringworm, which is a highly contagious fungus. At one point, our staff treated more than 50 infected cats, giving them sulfur baths and medications on a regular basis. People love to joke about herding cats, but you can only imagine how difficult it is to give baths to 50 cats!

Additionally this past summer we provided treatment wards for Toni’s Rescue at the SF/SPCA. Toni and her volunteers treated the infected kittens they rescued, under the guidance of Dr. Scarlett, Director of The SF/SPCA's Shelter Medicine program. Once the kittens were healthy, we put them up for adoption. These are great examples of people and rescue partners working together to make a difference in the lives of our animals. But there is so much more going on here at the SPCA. Below, you'll find a few short interviews from our staff and one rescue partner, Muttville, so you can hear first hand how the Leanne Roberts Center and the dedicated people who work and volunteer there make a difference.

Sincerely yours,

Jan McHugh-Smith

Sherri Franklin
Founder of Muttville, Senior Dog Rescue
Former Vice Chair of the San Francisco Commission of 
Animal Control and Welfare
We've partnered with the SF/SPCA for a long time and we have a good relationship. We consider them our partners in senior dog rescue. First of all, they’re our primary medical services provider. We get a lot of senior dogs from all over California, and because we focus on older dogs our animals often require a lot of medical care. The SPCA does spay/neuter for us, provides wellness visits, dental care and a lot more. And, they provide this medical care at a substantial discount. This is a key point.

Charity veterinary care is a really important part of senior dog rescue because 90% of our budget goes to vet care. We can save a lot more animals if we have access to reduced rate vet care, and that’s exactly what the SF/SPCA provides us. Beyond that, we can always count on the SF/SPCA to house dogs when needed. They’re always willing to hold our dogs for 24 or 48 hours. We don’t have a shelter, but rely on available foster homes, so this is another service they provide that allows us to do what we do: save older dogs.

Jack Aldridge, DVM, Director of Veterinary Services, The SF/SPCA
I’ve been with the SF/SPCA for 33 years. The thing that’s kept me here so long is that is the work we do here is different than what most other veterinarians experience. Pet owners or caregivers who go into the typical animal hospital or veterinary office with a sick animal usually are presented with two choices: we can save your pet but it’s going to cost a lot of money, or we can put your animal to sleep for less. At the SPCA, we are very fortunate in that we are not bound by the same economic concerns that other vets face, meaning treatment and care considerations aren’t made primarily on cost considerations.

Financial realities for the veterinary profession today are as challenging as they ever have been. The veterinarians I know try their best to take on charity cases when they can, and most do take on cases when they can. The fact is, however, that there are no general hospitals for animals. At the SF/SPCA, we try very hard to close this gap. If you come in with a sick animal, we can find a way to get that animal the care it needs. This doesn’t mean we can take care of every case. Nevertheless, the SF/ SPCA is very generous to give us as many opportunities to save as many animals as possible. If you come in with a sick or injured animal, owned or unwanted, we can find a way to get that animal the care it needs.

We spend a tremendous amount of our time working with people who need financial support. The need has gone way up in the last year, which has made it more difficult to meet demand. So, there has certainly been pressure to provide resources to as many as possible, and we find ourselves working with people to find creative solutions to finance needed care. For instance, a grant that we know may be difficult to pay back, or a payment plan or something of that nature. Regardless, we find a way to provide care when it’s needed. Doing this kind of work is almost unheard of elsewhere in the country. Ideally, the SF/SPCA would have unlimited resources. That’s not the case. We do the best we can with what we have.

Shana Long
Client Services Supervisor, CVS
As the client services supervisor at the SF/SPCA I’m involved everyday with helping pet owners get the care they need for their animals. Day-to-day operations, and managing staff and volunteers are big parts of the job, but I also spend a lot of time working with our financial staff to help clients secure charity care when needed. And the need for charity care and financial support has skyrocketed in the past year or so. This is true for both low-income residents who qualify for grants or subsidized care, and residents who might not qualify for charity because their annual income doesn’t meet the cutoff, but who still aren’t able to pay right away.

Program B is our conventional charity care program for low-income San Francisco residents. With this program, people can get an account that’s never subject to interest or collections; they get an outright grant that they can use to pay for their pet’s care at the SF/SPCA. We’re seeing a lot more Program B cases, yet we’re also seeing a sharp increase in middle-income people who need financial help. They’re struggling with mortgages, they might have recently lost a job—people who would usually be able to pay for care but just are having trouble. For these folks we usually direct them to the CareCredit, a national program. It’s basically set up like a credit card account, but you can make interest-free payment for up to 18 months. If you’re a San Francisco resident but you don’t qualify for CareCredit, we do have other monthly payment plans. The only criteria for our programs are that you must be a city resident, and your pet must be spayed or neutered.

The upturn in the need for charity care coincided with the opening of the new Roberts Animal Care Center. The additional space and improved equipment mean we’re able to serve a greater percentage of the population. We were limited in the past, both staff wise and space wise, and those restrictions are largely gone now. More cat and dog guardians are now making appointments, and with our expanded facilities we can handle the bigger load. We’re especially serving a lot more people in the spay/neuter clinic, and we can accommodate a lot more animals on the shelter side. Also, we now have the latest technologies, like digital radiology and ultrasound, so our capabilities to treat serious conditions have really improved. Overall, the economic downturn has had a big impact on us financially, but I think right now we’re doing better than ever at executing on our core mission, and that’s something we can be proud of.

To contact The SF/SPCA, please email publicinfo@sfspca.org.