Look out for the SNYP truck: Canada's first mobile spay-neuter clinic
Toronto launches a mobile clinic to help limit the spread of unwanted strays
Toronto has bought a mobile veterinary clinic that will tour the city's neighbourhoods to spay and neuter pets.
It'll be called the SNYP truck — which stands for Spay and Neuter Your Pet.
The goal of the truck is to remove barriers — both financial and geographical — that prevent people from getting cats and dogs fixed. Toronto will be the first city in Canada to employ a mobile spay and neuter clinic.
Toronto Animal Services will operate the truck. The agency says it will serve both dogs and cats owned by Torontonians of every stripe, but will focus on cats and neighbourhoods where strays are more rampant.
"We want to target those people in Toronto who otherwise do not have access to a veterinarian," said Mary Lou Leiher, the manager of partnerships and marketing at Toronto Animal Services.
Transportation and cost tend to be the biggest barriers for people to get their pets spayed and neutered. Leiher said information from Animal Services points to neighbourhoods where stray animal intake is the highest.
"If animals are not spayed or neutered, then they are multiplying," she said.
No cost to the city
The truck is more than 12-metres long and will include a stainless steel operating table, 35 cages for animals that can be partitioned off to fit as many as 70 animals.
It will combine that grant and private donations to cover the ongoing operating costs.
The goal is to offer the same services veterinary clinics currently offer, only in the truck, which Toronto Animal Services describes as "state-of-the-art."
The SNYP Truck will be unveiled on Wednesday at Nathan Phillips Square from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. with a live band and food trucks. It will begin operation by appointment only at first, and then Animal Services will use an outreach coordinator to let people know when the truck will be in their neighbourhood.