Event Recap: Spreading Love, Care and Animal Welfare at Healthy Pet Days Posted on June 8, 2023 Recently the Outreach Team hit the road and headed to the North West! First stop was the township of Tenterfield. The annual event was in partnership with the Orchard Hills Vet Clinic team, Tenterfield Vet Clinic, Tenterfield Shire Council and Petbarn Foundation. It was a fully booked day with 3 Vet stands manned by RSPCA vets Dr Chau Phan and Dr Jessica Park and local Tenterfield Vet Dr Laura Adams. We also had behaviourist Kate Conaghan from RSPCA join us to assist owners with any behaviour/training questions and advice. Together we health checked and vaccinated 53 Dogs and 20 Cats, microchipped 32 animals and had 26 animals sign up for the subsidised desexing program. All animals left with flea and or tick prevention and a bag of food provided by Petbarn Foundation. Following on from our Tenterfield Healthy Pet Day, the team then travelled to Tamworth to run our bi-annual Healthy Pet Day with our local partners Tamworth Tafe and Tamworth Regional Council. Tamworth is always a busy day! Tafe supplied 3 vets to complement Dr Jess and Dr Chau, and nearly 20 Tafe vet nurse students assisted at the vet stations. The day offers a wonderful opportunity for the students to learn so many skills and information regarding cat and dog health and welfare, and also gain experience communicating with the general public. We also had Keagan from the Rutherford Behaviour Team join us to help anyone needing assistance with their pets behaviour and training concerns. Together we had 73 Dogs and 29 Cats health checked, vaccinated and provided with parasite prevention. Of those that needed microchipping there were 26 Dogs and 22 Cats. We were able to offer a subsidised desexing program on the day and over 70 animals were added to the list. The surgeries will be done through the local clinics over the next few months. Petbarn Foundations continued support ensures that we are able to offer free parasite prevention products, cat and dog food. It allows us to have an impact past the event, and with our new survey capturing attendees thoughts on the day, 99% of people reported that they learnt something about caring for their pet at the event. Scarily, over 42% of owners have had a pet that either got sick or died from parvo virus. Hopefully this kind of preventative health service helps to reduce that number. We are pleased to share another successful Outreach trip and would like to Thank both Tenterfield and Tamworth councils and community members for their collective efforts to make these trips such a success!
