Otero County, Colorado
Otero County is located three hours southeast of Denver, and includes the rural cities of La Junta, Rocky Ford, Fowler, Manzanola, Cheraw, Swink, and Timpas, with a collective population of 18,000 people. This hardworking community has a median family income of $35,000, and 18% of the population lives below the poverty line.
No local shelters exist for families to surrender their pets, so it’s common to find dogs and cats roaming the neighborhoods and county roads unaltered. Stray dogs are taken to animal shelters operated by police stations, with no public visibility or ability for the public to adopt. There, they are placed on a 5-day stray hold for their families to claim them. Once this grace period ends, hundreds of dogs face euthanasia each year. Meanwhile, feral cat colonies have overrun the cities with no available resources to control the population and they are suffering on the streets, with their lives often ending early in to cruel death or disease.
Otero County is pleading for help to reduce its pet population. We conducted a survey to gauge the community's interest in spaying and neutering their pets, and within 12 hours, 200 families responded with requests to have us help fix over 400 animals. When asked why they hadn't already taken sterilized their pet, 9.5 out of 10 respondents cited cost as the only barrier.
When we help fix a pet, we also help a family. The word often used after a pet is sterilized is “relieved.” Let’s embrace this rural Colorado county and show how creating access to low-cost spay and neuter can transform these communities and save hundreds of lives each year.
Our Otero County Spay and Neuter Program:
We offer every family who picks up their dog from the city shelter a voucher to sterilize their pet at a local veterinarian clinic (we have a relationship established with the amazing Dr. Jayne Aldrich). This will provide immediate population control for high-risk animals and solutions for families wanting to keep their pets.
We sponsor high-volume, multi-day mobile spay and neuter clinics at least once per quarter. We sponsored a December 2024 clinic and sterilized 315 dogs and cats in four days. We want to repeat this model throughout 2025.
Our ultimate goal is to sterilize 1,000+ dogs and cats in Otero County in 2025!
How can you help?
Our goal is to raise $50,000 to provide low-cost spay and neuter services to Otero County in 2025 and for years to come.
Donate to the Angels for Angels Foundation (please send us a note to direct your donation to “Otero County”)
Our Otero County GoFundMe will be launching in February 2025 in partnership with HWY 50 Freedom Ride, a 501(c)3 non-profit who has been networking and transporting the police shelter dogs every week for 15 years and never leaves a dog behind.
