Operation Catnip helps Gainesville-area cats

On January 30 and 31 alone, 218 cats in the Gainesville area were spayed or neutered thanks to Operation Catnip, a humane trap-and-release program that offers free spay and neuter services in addition to vet exams, vaccines and medications for local cats.

This number, while seemingly high, is no shock to Audrey Garrison, the executive director of Alachua’s program.

“We’re pretty comfortable with 200-plus,”  said Garrison. “The November clinic was 225.”

According to the Operation Catnip website, the program has so far helped over 2,800 cats.

Where do all these kitties come from? Caretakers who feed their local strays hear about Operation Catnip, then schedule their stray for a clinic, rent out a humane trap with a refundable deposit and follow carefully given instructions from the program’s professionals.

Many of the staff members who work in the clinic are University of Florida vet students.

“We use our clinic model to train vet students at the University of Florida,” Garrison said. “They have the ability, during their first two years, to obtain a lot of clinical skills.”

Being a teaching model for students is second only to safely and effectively taking care of hundreds of cats.

Operation Catnip was created by Dr. Julie Levy in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1997. She moved to Gainesville and brought the clinic model with her, starting it in 1998.

Garrison came to Gainesville from Manatee County, where she had been doing trap-neuter-release. She first met Levy at a TNR seminar at UF.

“At that point, TNR was kind of taboo in my county,” she said. “I was told all the time that, ‘You’re gonna get arrested, what you’re doing is illegal,’ and everything, and Dr. Levy was saying the things that made sense to me.”

Garrison took what she learned from Levy back to her home county, and in 2012, Manatee stopped euthanizing cats for population control.

Garrison said Operation Catnip is her dream job. One of her favorite stories is about a cat — named Chairman Meow — she adopted from the Alachua Humane Society (where the program is located).

“He was an old guy and he was cantankerous and would bite you,” she said. “He was a tough cat, and we took him home and he is a little love. He just needed to be in a house.”

The program has also helped reunite owners with their long lost cats when they check for microchips. The last instance happened about a year ago, but the cat was able to reunite with its owners at the Humane Society after being gone for two years.

“The program makes immediate impact, and you see it,” Garrison said. “There are very few things that you can do that so directly affects the lives of animals and people.”