The monthly partnership between the Renton Library and the Washington Health Outreach (WAHO) — where the parking lot off 100 Mill Avenue South becomes a temporary veterinary clinic with free and low-cost pet care — has become such a success that WAHO Board President Anna Ludwig said the clinic needs more volunteers.

“At first, 10 or 15 people would show up, and our five volunteers would take care of their pets, hand out food and litter and that kind of thing, and it has grown to the point where we are turning away as many people as we were originally seeing,” Ludwig said in a Zoom call. “I think at the [January clinic], 75 people showed up to get care for their pets and we have, you know, one veterinarian, and maybe two assistants and a couple volunteers handing out pet food and helping check people in and that’s it. We’re all volunteers, so it’s been really challenging to try to meet the needs.”

WAHO is a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve community health through free and low-cost veterinary services, health services and social services in King County.

Since partnering with the King County Library System over a year and a half ago, WAHO alternates between pop-up clinics in Renton and Seattle, offering examinations, vaccinations, microchipping, deworming, flea and/or parasite treatment, anal gland expression and a nail trim for pets that need them. For low-income pet owners, the exam, microchip, anal gland expression and nail trim do not exceed $20 per service, and for unhoused pet owners, all of these services are free.

“Our belief is that everybody deserves to experience the joy of the human animal bond, if they want to,” said Ludwig, later adding that WAHO looks for more realistic and compassionate solutions to help people and their pets, regardless of housing status. “I would say before we believe that unhoused folks shouldn’t have pets, we believe that everyone deserves housing. So instead of focusing on ‘these people shouldn’t have this or that,’ how about we just house people? And then the pets are then housed. So, it’s very simple to me.”

While veterinary care is the primary service WAHO provides, the organization also issues information on resources for healthcare, housing, emergency shelters, food banks, hygiene services, mental health services and transportation.

“We can provide [pets] with warmth, we can provide them with nutrition. We can provide them with the veterinary care they need, and just on a realistic level,” she said.

Part of these realistic measures are meeting people where they are. WAHO does not require that pets who come to their low-income clinics be spayed or neutured, though it is encouraged. Being strong armed and bullied into something is not typically the way that people are are willing to do things, said Ludwig.

“We’ve found that if we provide care for pets and build relationships and trust with their owners that over time, we are often very successful at getting those pets fixed. Whereas they wouldn’t have been if we had simply said, ‘Oh, we’re not going to see your pet anymore because it’s not spayed or neutered,’” said Ludwig, adding that, in her experience, a lot of hesitations are because people have had bad experiences dealing with human healthcare and with veterinary care.

“They don’t necessarily trust that folks are going to do what say they will. For instance, we encounter a lot of folks in encampments specifically who say that people have come to, you know, round up their cats to spay and neuter them, promising they’ll bring them back, and then they just take them,” she said.

As far as needing donations, Ludwig said that WAHO always welcomes money donations and in-kind donations like pet food, pet supplies and leftover medications. In terms of volunteers, WAHO needs people who can hand out pet food, help people with filling out applications, checking in patients and help with transportation. Most importantly, they are looking for more volunteer veterinarians and veterinary technicians.

“We can’t grow without that piece as well,” Ludwig said of volunteer veterinary professionals.

The next free and low-income veterinary clinic will be in the Renton Library parking lot at 11 a.m. March 9. For more information, visit wahealthoutreach.org.