Five-month-old Orange Crush, an orange-and-white kitten who also goes by Crushy, marked a milestone for Operation Catnip.
On Sunday, the UF’s College of Veterinary Medicine’s Operation Catnip completed its 50,000th surgery through its spay and neuter program at the Alachua County Humane Society, located at 4205 NW Sixth St. The program offers free services, including vaccinations and medicine for cats.
Pattie Smith, a Hawthorne, Florida, resident, said she brought the kitten to the clinic because she didn’t feel she could take care of it anymore.
As soon as Smith and her father checked in the four cats they brought in, they found out Crushy would be the 50,000th cat. She said it was funny how much attention Crushy got, adding that they kept the balloons he was given when he went into surgery.
“I told the other cats it could have happened to any of them,” Smith said. “He was just the lucky one.”
The program, which began in 1998, now helps about 2,000 cats each year, said Audrey Garrison, the executive director of Operation Catnip. The program hosts free spay and neuter surgeries once a month in order to provide health care for stray cats.
“The cats go through by station,” Garrison said. “It’s kind of like an assembly line.”
