Fix West Texas, a non-profit organization with the purpose of spaying and neutering cats and dogs in West Texas, is expanding rapidly as the group looks to help even more animals, community members and families in the region.
So far, the organization has spayed and neutered around 7,000 cats and dogs this year, meaning their impact has already been very apparent. A surplus of stray cats and dogs is the primary driving force behind a large number of those animals that end up in shelters or subject to possible euthanasia. With their services, Fix West Texas is hoping to help this problem.
Karen Patterson, the founder of Fix West Texas, saw this problem unfold in her own community and decided to do something about it.
"We started Fix West Texas as a mobile spay and neuter clinic and now we have our own clinic," she said.
Now, the organization offers low-cost spay and neuter services as well as vaccinations for pet owners in the community. The ripple effect of spaying and neutering 7,000 animals is hard to calculate, but it will surely end up curbing the stray population in the community and lowering the number of unnecessary animal deaths.
"We hope we're creating some momentum for a social change here in West Texas, of getting your animals spayed and neutered so we don't have the overpopulation problem, so we don't have the strays on the street, so we don't have so many in the shelter we have to kill because there's not enough homes," Patterson said.
The city has attempted to address the problem as well, but with slightly less success. Midland opened a new animal shelter this year, but Patterson says that doesn't address the core issue.
"We have a new beautiful animal shelter, state of the art, invested about 10 million dollars on it, but the fact of the matter is we're killing about just as many as we were at the old shelter," said.
Apart from spay and neuter services, Fix West Texas also provides warm beds and food for strays and community education as to how to best care for pets.