Homeless can bring pets to free popup clinic
A Colorado veterinarian is putting together a popup clinic Sunday to treat pets that belong to Denver’s homeless population.
Fort Collins emergency veterinarian practitioner Jon Geller serves a sevencounty metro area with about 11,000 homeless people. Of those, about 60 percent live in Denver, according to a news release from the American Veterinary Medical Association.
“I have continued to be impressed on how much harder homeless folks make their lives by owning a pet,” Geller said in the news release. “These people have a very strong bond with their pets. They face added challenges of using public transportation, finding housing, working a job, even going to a doctor’s appointment because they can’t leave their pets at ‘home.’ On the other hand, for many of our homeless, their pets provide a purpose to their lives where none would exist otherwise.”
The popup clinic will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sunday on the street outside the Colorado Convention Center, where the American Veterinary Medical Association is holding its annual convention.
Michael San Filippo, spokesman for the medical association, said the Denver clinic will offer physical exams, microchipping, rabies vaccinations, other core vaccines, parasite control, diagnostic tests and dispense medications. Vets also will treat skin, eye or ear problems and stitch up small wounds.
The clinic will be staffed by volunteer vets attending the convention who will provide free medical care and other services for the pets of the homeless. Hygiene kits assembled during the convention also will be handed out to the pets’ owners.
Geller and his team of volunteer vets and vet technicians — named the Street Dog Coalition — search for locations often near shelters and set up monthly clinics in Colorado cities. In bigger cities, Geller said team members can see 50 to 100 pet patients per day.
The Street Dog Coalition has inspired other popup clinics in Illinois, Kentucky, New York, Florida and beyond.
Geller hopes to find more volunteers to help spread the popup clinics at the veterinarian convention.