Local animal clinic gaining recognition for cat program

MADISON, Neb.-- A Nebraska animal clinic is making a name for itself by helping out cats.

The Madison County Veterinary Clinic is becoming a popular spot not only around northeast Nebraska but the whole state as well for its Barn Cat program. The program takes in dozens of cats at a time to have them safety spayed and neutered before returning them where they’re originally from and this helps with things like overpopulation.

The program initially started back in 2017. One of the veterinarians at the clinic, Dr. Kathleen Ritzmann, said the word got around fast.

“We had some large animal clients who were interested in keeping their cats around and they had a group of farm cats and they wanted an outlet for them to get spayed and neutered so they would stay local,” Ritzmann said. “So, we started offering the discounted spay and neuter for them and then word just got around.”

It’s an important program at the moment for the shelter because not only does the program help with overpopulation, but it also increases the individual animal's health by decreasing the risk for transmissible diseases, like rabies, and decreases stray kittens at risk for death by cars, predators, diseases, or euthanasia in open admission shelters.

Ritzmann said overpopulation is still a problem around northeast Nebraska.

“There’s still a lot of stray cats, unowned cats, unwanted cats out there,” Ritzmann said. “The shelter [Animal Shelter of Northeast Nebraska] will balloon up and have a waitlist of dozens at the height of kitten season.”

Lisa Doescher, who is the shelter manager of the Animal Shelter of Northeast Nebraska, said the shelter usually has a waitlist.

“Just in the end there’s so many cats,” Doescher said. “We only have so much room and we’re a no-kill shelter so when we’re full, we’re full.“

The program is done every Thursday. Ritzmann said they usually have at least 30 cats spayed and neutered during that time.

“We have 37 scheduled for today,” Ritzmann said. “We do the Barn Cat program every Thursday. We schedule between 30 and 35. We’ve done 490 this year.”

For more information on the program, anyone can go to their website to learn more.