How It All Got Started

A difficult goal for our shelter and my school to achieve was opening the Spay/Neuter Clinic on the school campus. It was definitely intrinsic motivation for me. I was determined to see this happen because I knew it would be a win for the school and a win for the shelter. The shelter had very few options for spay/neuter surgeries, especially for cats and the veterinary science students needed more hands-on opportunities to develop skills. I knew it was going to be challenging but I love a good challenge and I had been told by several people that it would NEVER happen. That became my motivation for the project! I was determined to see it through. I guess I'm just hard-headed enough to not give up. What started out as a dream for another county shelter and another school followed me to my new job in a neighboring county. This idea was first met with much opposition, such as, "It has never been done before", "It is too much liability", "the students cant be trained", and "No Vet will work with us", There were many questions to be answered. After moving to Tipton County, I made contact with the shelter director, local veterinarians, and several rescue groups and pitched my idea to start a clinic at the high school. I also met with my four teaching partners, the principal, Career Technical Director, and FFA Alumni to discuss funding. After receiving the blessing from my teaching partners - I started to clean out and paint a classroom that had been used for storage. I gathered all the supplies and equipment from the agriculture department used for the animal science classes into the classroom and assessed what equipment we had. I used my classroom supply money for the year to purchase stainless steel cabinets, tables, stools, and a sink for the new "Vet Science Lab" and started to organize what we had. Others had to be able to reimagine the old classroom as a veterinary clinic. We set up treatment tables, a lab area with a microscope, and pop-up kennels to house animals. We started taking in foster cats from the shelter and started out giving injections and just caring for the cats. We did this for 5 months. Once the stakeholders started to see the students learning and the program working they were more anxious to help. I approached the CTE director and the FFA Alumni about purchasing more supplies and permanent kennels and they were on board. We cleaned out a storage room with a large window to be used as a surgery room. Since there was no surgical equipment the students made the room look like a surgical suit with a stainless table and labels where the anesthesia machine would be. Again, it was about visualizing the space. The CTE director agreed to purchase an anesthesia machine and we were set up to go. A rescue friend from Memphis introduced us to Veterinarian who came to visit and fell in love with the idea. She agreed to volunteer her time for the first year doing one surgery day a month. Once we were actually spaying and neutering cats, everyone got excited and the county mayor was ready to expand. We met with the county budget committee to establish funding to pay our veterinarian for the next year. Each year we have added more funding for salaries and equipment. We currently work with three veterinarians and have at least one surgery day per week at the school clinic. This project had Valence: the room had been reimagined as a veterinary clinic, and everyone started to see the potential outcome for the students and the shelter cats, Instrumentality: the students, the county commission, the shelter director, and staff saw the potential to save cats from the shelter, Expectancy: the clinic had the capabilities to produce the desired outcome of giving students more hands-on opportunities while helping the community at the same time. The students, the teachers, the shelter, the county commission, and the community all became invested in the veterinary clinic. Any time there were roadblocks everyone was determined to see it work out. Everyone who helped with this project in Tipton County was committed to seeing it through.