Veterinarian Hanna Booth is standing in a Toronto Animal Services truck in the parking lot of a west-end No Frills, where a mournful five-month-old pup named Oddy is howling for her owner to come back.

The Husky-Collie mix is soon joined by four cats, who are efficiently checked in by Leanne Pancer and Kara Kruger, both registered veterinary technicians with the city-run agency.

For a while there is a concerto of meows mixed with Oddy’s whimpers as the pets — with names such as Izzy, Tigger and Mr. Mittens — are taken from their carriers to be examined and weighed at this mobile spay-neuter clinic.

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Afterwards, they are moved to one of the cages that line an interior wall of the vehicle, where they’ll wait for their surgery.

Spay and neuter programs such as this, which is subsidized or free depending on a pet owner’s income, is one of many initiatives that has led to a dramatic improvement in animal welfare in the city.

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The number of cats and dogs in city-run shelters is less than half what it was more than a decade ago. And that has eliminated overcrowding in the shelters, overcrowding which promoted the spread of illness.

Both factors have helped lead to a dramatic reduction in the number of animals euthanized at Toronto Animal Services.

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Nearly 5,000 cats were put down by TAS in 2006, according to city data obtained by the Toronto Star. By 2018, that number had dropped to 793, a decrease of more than 80 per cent.

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In 2006, more than 1,100 dogs were euthanized, a number that dropped to 348 by 2018, down by 70 per cent.

Bino is weighed during her assessment before getting spayed. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star)

Toronto Animal Services launched the mobile truck, called SNYP, for Spay and Neuter Your Pet, in 2016 after a study showed that strays were coming in from areas of the city where the average household income wasn’t enough to afford veterinary care.

On this morning, the technicians are quickly going through intake forms, filling needles for vaccinations, microchips and pain-relievers, their arms reaching over and under each other in the tight space. Once the needles are placed in a plastic see-through pouch on each cage, the self-contained mobile team — Pancer even drove the 12-metre truck — is ready.

Booth will operate on a small surgical suite at the back of the vehicle.

“It’s so valuable,” Booth says of their work. “It’s the most feel-good job you can have. You see people crying, hugging you. People are so appreciative. People say, ‘you’ve made my year.’

“Especially the folks where their animal is their everything in life. And then they don’t have the money,” she says. “They feel so good when they have a licence, a microchip, their animal is vaccinated and spay-neutred. They feel that sense of ‘I’ve done the right thing. I’m a responsible pet owner.’ ”

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Dr. Hanna Booth greets Oddy who is in to be spayed as Leanne Pancer, a registered veterinarian technician, holds her. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star)

The mobile truck, custom-built using donations and a grant from PetSmart Charities, fills a need that is not just financial.

“There’s also a geographical challenge because there doesn’t tend to be veterinarians in those areas,” says Mary Lou Leiher, a program manager for TAS. “And many people have mobility issues.

“What we recognized was needed is to get a mobile spay-neuter clinic to drive into those areas and service those people who can get fees waived.”

The truck is one of the many initiatives that have turned animal welfare around at Toronto Animal Services from the days when so many animals had to be put down.

“It was really miserable,” says Leiher of the years when the shelters were over their capacity.

“If you can’t get on top of the overpopulation what happens is you end up with an overcrowded shelter. And when I say ‘overcrowded,’ I mean really overcrowded,” says Leiher. “(Cats) really can’t tolerate it. And they become sick with an upper respiratory virus.”

Dr. Hanna Booth spays Oddy during her first procedure of the day. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star)

TAS runs three open-admission shelters and will euthanize animals that can’t be saved or at the request of an owner with a chronically ill pet. The agency also has a bylaw enforcement arm to deal with dangerous dogs that must be put down.

Leiher says when shelters were full the organization didn’t have much time to work on prevention. A turning point came in 2006, when animal services hired two-full time veterinarians, specialists in shelter medicine. Until then, the organization used veterinarians on contract, and they also had their own practices.

Leiher says the staff veterinarians introduced them to community-based programs and helped them realize “sheltering animals is really just a Band-Aid. It doesn’t fix the problem.

“That’s really how we turned the corner,” she says.

Dr. Hanna Booth uses a scalpel to make a small scratch for a tattoo after she spays Bino. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star)

The organization began to go to more community events and launched dog-bite prevention programs. They stopped picking up healthy stray cats, realizing that many of them were becoming sick in the shelters and dying, although they will pick up strays when there is a need.

A mobile “chip truck,” was created so pet owners could microchip and vaccinate their dogs and cats for a low fee.

And Toronto Animal Services formed a number of partnerships with other humane societies and rescue organizations to transfer out animals that needed care they couldn’t provide. During the 2006 to 2018 period, the proportion of cats transferred out to partner organizations, including Toronto Cat Rescue, increased from 3 per cent to 34 per cent.

Jan Makachek has huge smiles as he is reunited with Oddy after she was spayed. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star)

Toronto Cat Rescue accepts cats from shelters that would otherwise be euthanized because they have complicated medical conditions. The organization has a network of foster homes and spends $600,000 a year on veterinary bills.

Leiher says it was a difficult transition as they tried to implement the programs and partnerships, while taking care of sick animals in the shelter.

“But we’re sort of on the other side of that now,” she says.

They also began to focus on the spay and neuter programs, which Leiher says has been a trend with shelters and rescues across North America for several years.

Mr. Mittens sits in his carrier as he waits to be discharged after getting neutered. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star)

The Toronto Humane Society, which is a non-profit animal welfare organization independent of TAS, has also experienced a 25-per-cent decrease in the number of owners surrendering their pets, as well as a decline in the intake of strays over a five-year period.

The humane society is a no-kill shelter, which means its euthanasia rates are below 10 per cent, says Phil Nichols, the humane society’s chief operations officer. He says it also means a shelter never kills an animal for space. Like TAS, the shelter offers subsidized spaying and neutering, as well as discounted rates for services such as vaccines, heartworm prevention and deworming.

Other groups have also played a major part in reducing the number of cats that end up in the shelter system.

The Annex Cat Rescue traps and neuters or spays colonies of homeless cats and then returns them to the area where they are living. The cats don’t reproduce and add to the burden of overpopulation. It is one of 10 organizations, along with TAS and the Toronto Humane Society, that belong to an umbrella group called the Toronto Feral Cat Coalition.

The number of feral cats in Toronto was once estimated to be 100,000, according to the coalition. It’s not known how many street cats there are now because no one tracks the number closely.

In some Southern U.S. states, with year-round warm weather, the overpopulation of free-roaming cats and dogs is a huge issue. Cities one-third the size of Toronto have shelters dealing with 40,000 animals a years, says Nichols.

A colony of 9 feral cats is fed and looked after by volunteers including Verena Besso in the Gerrard and Carlaw area who lays down some food under a trailer. (Richard Lautens / Toronto Star)

Verena Besso, a caretaker with the Annex Cat Rescue, tends to four colonies every Friday, giving them hard and soft food as many of the feral cats have lost teeth. One colony, near Gerrard St. and Carlaw Ave., has been there for nine years. She says some homeowners tolerate the cats, allowing them to live in the alley behind their house or even on their porch in the summer where they are cared for by a volunteer. Others have built entire enclosures in their backyards to house them.

Volunteers visit the colonies daily to feed the cats. In winter, the groups provide Rubbermaid bins for the cats to sleep in.

Nichols says all the programs have had a huge impact and lowered intake rates. The humane society now has the resources and the room to shelter animals from outside the city and has brought in 532 rescue dogs this year for adoption.

“We’re able to work with more overburdened and overpopulated shelters in a great number of places,” he says. These include Mexico, Texas, California, Georgia and remote Indigenous communities in Ontario.

“If we can control the population, then overpopulation is not a concern,” says Nichols. “Then overcrowding in the shelters is not a concern. Subsequent euthanasia can go down, which is really a big key in the transition that I think is sweeping the industry.”