REVIEWS: QuickSpay: 1-hour DVD
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:
QuickSpay: 1-hour DVD, featuring Marvin Mackie, DVM
Animal Issues Movement (420 N. Bonnie Brae Street, Los Angeles, CA
90026; <QuickSpay@aol.com>), 2005.
The City of Los Angeles in 1974 took over the operation of a
low-cost sterilization clinic opened a year earlier by Mercy Crusade,
and started the first city-subsidized sterilization program in the
U.S.
Working for that clinic, Marvin Mackie, DVM, developed
high-volume sterilization. Teaching his methods to others, Mackey
eventually founded a string of low-cost, high-volume sterilization
clinics, emulated by many others, including Jeff Young of Planned
Pethood Plus in Denver, and Mary Herro, now retired, who started
the Animal Foundation of Nevada in Las Vegas.
When Mackie started in veterinary practice, under 10% of all
pet dogs in the U.S. and under 1% of pet cats had been sterilized.
Today more than two-thirds of all pet dogs and upward of 80% of all
pet cats are sterilized, mostly by vets using the Mackie methods.
With practice, Mackie method vets routinely sterilize from
30 to 50 dogs and cats per day–and their productivity commands
salaries of upward of $100,000 a year.
While U.S. dog and cat sterilization programs long since
learned that one good vet who can perform quick, clean spays and
castrations day in and day out is worth twice the salary of a vet who
works at half the speed or whose surgeries often have complications,
the Mackie methods are still not well known and widely practiced
abroad, where street dogs and feral cats are still too often
poisoned or killed by other cruel methods.
In addition, veterinarians serving humane organizations in
rural and less affluent parts of the U.S. often have not yet had the
opportunity to learn what Mackie does to make dog and cat
sterilization quick and easy.
QuickSpay seeks to remedy that by showing, in just an hour of
videotape time, how Mackie performs start-to-finish spays and
castrations on a female dog, a male dog, a female cat, and a male
cat.
There is no voice-over, no commentary, no extraneously
illustrative material, just a single camera and recorder picking up
Mackie’s description of what he is doing as he does it, in “real
time.” A veterinarian who watches attentively should be able to
emulate every step.
“There is no charge to anyone in animal sheltering, humane
work, or veterinarians who want this DVD,” producer Phyllis
Daugherty of the Animal Issues Movement told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “They
need to send a self-addressed, padded envelope suitable for DVD/CD
mailing, and include either stamps or the correct metered postage on
the envelope. It should also have the requester’s address for
return. That way, if anything goes wrong in mailing, they will
still receive it. If they include an e-mail address, I will let
them know that we have received their envelope and when the DVD is on
its way. Those who want to contact us by e-mail can write to
<QuickSpay@aol.com>.”
Daughtery is now at work on a companion DVM, Setting Up
Spay Sites/Clinics, featuring Mackie and Young. “It will be ready
by mid-2006,” she promises. “This will be a walk-through of
Mackie’s clinic, showing how to handle all the details and
procedures from the phone call to make an appointment to the pet
going home after surgery. We will show how Mackie schedules and
coordinates appointments for shelter animals, feral cats and private
pets. We will also discuss financial and political pitfalls,
location, staffing, etc.
“If we have room,” within the time permitted on a single DVM
disk, “we will include some footage on doing high-volume surgeries in
a mobile setting, i.e. a van, or at a remote location where an
existing room or building is turned into a temporary surgical site,”
Daugherty promises.
“We will handle the distribution in the same manner as
QuickSpay, without charge.”
