BOQUETE, PANAMA - Once a month, the Association Amigos de Animales Boquete (AADAB) rallies hundreds of volunteers to put on a spay and neuter clinic for the local animals. Thanks to fundraisers and donations, the cost of this is extremely low and in many cases free for members of the community who participate. The team of volunteer vets and animal caretakers work from dawn to dusk processing as many animals as they can safely (typically hundreds in a day). This year alone, they’ve sterilized 1759 animals. Their number is over 15,000 since the inception of the clinic in 2005. These efforts have dramatically reduced the number of starving packs of animals wandering the streets. Learn more at https://www.aadab.org/.

This proud mother gave birth to nine puppies, all female. All of them, including the mother, were safely spayed in a few hours at the clinic. A litter of six unspayed females can produce 7,776 puppies in a five year period.

Local student volunteers are rigorously trained and monitored as they help with the clinic. Often times they will be assigned to massaging the post-surgery animals to ensure they come out of anesthesia safely.

Animal temperatures are carefully monitored while under anesthesia to ensure their wellbeing at all times.

Trained veterinarians and assistants volunteer their entire day to work tirelessly on safely spaying and neutering each animal.

Throughout the day, the clinic’s power would unexpectedly go out (as it does from time to time in the community). Doctors and volunteers wouldn’t miss a beat as they continued to work with the help of head lamps, flashlights, and sometimes the light from their own cell phones.