By Elisa Cohen
St. Francis of Assisi was a friend of the animals and October 3 is a holiday on which Catholics and others make a special blessing for the animals in their lives. If St. Francis lived in North Denver today, there is no doubt that he would be working with Dr. Jeff Young and his wife Janet at Planned Pethood Plus and Planet Pethood. While both of these businesses exist as for-profit enterprises, the underlying mission for both the veterinary clinic and the pet store is the improvement of life for animals in North Denver and literal throughout the world.
Dr. Jeff young has been a vet for over 20 years. The name of his clinic sums up his philosophy on how to reduce animal suffering in the world. Planned Pethood includes spaying and neutering animals because millions of unwanted companion animals dogs and cats are killed each year. To remedy this situation, Dr. young performs low cost spay and neuters in his own clinic, but in a
Dr. Jeff Young and his wife have made it their life mission to help reduce animal suffering by increasing the number of trained veterinarians around the world willing and able to spay and neuter cats and dogs. At home they provide rescue and health care for animals.
movement he calls “Spay it forward” he has spent years building clinics and traveling around the world training veterinarians how to do the procedure in clinics that are self-sustaining.
Dr. young and his wife Janet recently
spent time in Maui. While there, they spayed 438 cats. Although that is a remarkable amount of cats who will no longer be contributing to the unwanted cat population in Maui, Dr. Young said he came to realize that he could not single-handedly spay and neuter all of the animals in the world.
He has established a clinic in Slovakia and in Merida, Mexico where veterinarians perform spay and neuter services while
also taking care of the animals in a for-profit manner, Dr. young brings the latest technology to these clinics. Dr. Young’s motivations are to ease animal suffering and his methods include capitalism with paid services paying for new clinics and more trainings. His goal is to have five clinics around thew world to which he will travel and spread the techniques to safely reduce unwanted animals.
For years North Denver residents have taken advantage of Planned Pethood Plus’s low cost vaccination and low cost spay and neuter services. On any given Saturday, a line snakes out of the offices at 42 and Tennyson.
