If a private shelter worked with larger shelters and organizations would it recieve the same benefits?

Question

Being the honest person I am, I want to be an honest vet when I grow up which will, of course, put me in more of a pickle when it comes to money. I also wanted to open a shelter so when kitten season (and puppy season...if there is one) comes around I could take some weight off the SPCA. I also wanted to do the same with BLM when they rounded up the mustangs and burros (help training and providing more space by having the animals on my property). I'm pretty aware that there is no way on earth that I could run my own shelter and private practice alone...on only my salary so I was wondering if it was possible to just sort of team up with them, treat any animals I have, and then have adoptions go through them.

I also wanted to give back by allowing people who can't afford to have a pet sponsor or take care of an animal in need.

Answer 1

Most shelters receive no real benefits from any kind of government type assistance, only from donations.. Our city for example only gives the SPCA $5 per stray animal and nothing for owner surrenders. Pretty much, there really aren't any benefits to share, it's whatever money you can raise.

Our local vets take turns volunteering to do spay and neuters one day a week for the SPCA. Some of them also have adoption cages in their lobbies with adoptable cats and kittens in them and an information board with photos and info on some of the dogs available.

I do cat rescue on my own- I rescue about 10 cats a year and find them homes. When I bring those rescued cats to the vet, they don't cut me any kind of break at all. I brought in two kittens at the same time for upper respiratory and got charged $75 each for my 5 minute vet visit..

There are a lot of people that can do rescue, what limits us is mostly space and vetting fees. In other words, your time will be better spent actually volunteering as a vet rather then running a shelter or rescue. Vets I know take home the occasional foster, but, mostly they do things like spay/neuter and emergency care for the local shelter. If they spend any time doing the sheltering part of it, they would use up the time they had available to help with the things we can't do.