by Julie Wenger Watson | Photos courtesy of Tulsa SPCA
Any pet owner can tell you that animals can be expensive. There are
the predictable costs, such as food, toys, and vaccines, and then there are the unexpected bills if emergency vet care is ever needed. Beyond the initial investment to buy or adopt a pet, the annual cost of owning a cat or dog can run anywhere from $500 to thousands of dollars. Routine medical care, including preventive medications, can be a significant part of that expense. Fortunately, a $1 million gift from the estate of John and Tricia Arend funded a new 7,000-square-foot clinic at the Tulsa SPCA, 2910 Mohawk Boulevard. The clinic, which is nearly three times the size of the previous clinic, offers pet owners an affordable way to provide basic, preventive health care to dogs and cats. “If you look at a map, north of Admiral, there’s one full-service vet clinic, and then there’s us and Spay Oklahoma,” says Erin Johnson, Tulsa SPCA clinic manager. “There are really not a lot of options for people who live out here or low-cost options in general for people in Tulsa.”
Low-Cost Animal Care Aids Tulsa Area
The Tulsa SPCA offers a Low-Cost Vaccination Clinic, which is open to the general public. Services include yearly vaccinations, microchipping, heartworm testing, deworming, and feline leukemia testing. Prevention medications for fleas, ticks, and heartworms are also available. The facility’s Preventative Care Clinic provides affordable wellness examinations and treatment for minor medical issues such as ear or skin infections, and appointments can be made for spay and neuter surgeries.
According to Johnson, pet owners come from in and outside the Tulsa area, many of them driving several hours to bring their animals to the SPCA. The number of clients served is impressive. In 2021, the clinics treated more than 14,000 animals, administered more than 19,000 vaccines, and performed more than 6,000 spay and neuter surgeries.
Johnson works with two full-time veterinarians, numerous vet assistants, and a pet-care crew to accomplish all of that and look after the animals in the facility’s
care. The organization is hiring a third veterinarian, with eventual plans to expand clinic services.
“The goal is to offer more services for people that they otherwise couldn’t afford,” Johnson says. “Some of this is just so important. It literally could be a life-ordeath difference for their animals.”
Tulsa SPCA Encourages Vaccines and Heartworm Prevention
Part of the clinic’s mission is to educate people about pet care — in particular, the importance of preventive health care. “The biggest thing is the basic vaccines and then heartworm testing. Living in Oklahoma, we do have a pretty big issue with heartworms,” Johnson notes.
Johnson stresses the necessity of keeping dogs on preventive heartworm medication year-round. “It’s going to cost you way more to treat heartworms than it would have to prevent them in the first place,” she says.
Along with heartworm testing, the clinic provides preventive heartworm medications at a reduced rate. In case of an infection, the clinics also treat heartworm for considerably less than it normally might cost elsewhere.
“It can be a pretty grueling, expensive process,” Johnson says. “We offer it for a reduced cost and allow it to be paid out over a three-month period. The treatment is three to four months, so you pay it out over that treatment time.”
Adoption and Rescue Are Priorities
A group of concerned citizens established the Tulsa Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1913. In addition to public clinics, the Tulsa SPCA functions as an adoption and rescue facility. With a mission “to improve the lives of dogs and cats, and their human companions,” it found homes for 960 animals and conducted 1,518 cruelty investigations last year.
The Tulsa SPCA provides all those services with no government funding and is not affiliated with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Instead, the organization relies primarily on donations and some fund-raising
events, with the clinics providing additional revenue to help cover costs.
Johnson looks forward to the continued expansion of the John and Tricia Arend Clinic at the Tulsa SPCA.
“Just give us some time. We’re working on it,” she says. “We really want to offer more extensive services and to be able to help.”
For more information, visit https://tulsaspca.org.
