Today we’d like to introduce you to Deana Love.
Hi Deana, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I founded Texas Litter Control in September of 2012. We opened our doors on 2/2/2013. We are a Texas Non Profit Corporation and 501c3 public charity. Texas Litter Control’s primary activities are high quality, low cost spay/neuter and wellness/preventative veterinary services. We are open to the general public. We opened in an 800 square foot FEMA trailer. We helped so many people (over 17,000) in that little trailer that we wore the floor out and had to move into a bigger facility in July of 2015. We now have 3 5,000+ square foot locations. We are performing over 27,000 spay/neuter surgeries per year and helping serving over 10,000 animals with low cost wellness and preventative services per year. We are located in Tomball, Spring, and Humble.
We base our programs on the needs of our municipal shelters. This is how our community cat program was born. the community cat program has serviced over 50,000 stray kitties in our communities. Our shelter intervention program was formed more recently to help people keep their pets. This program provides short-term help for people considering surrendering an animal to a shelter. We have also opened a resale shop next door to our Tomball clinic. This shop’s proceeds is used to help fund out shelter intervention program.
Currently we are battling the national veterinary shortage. We are sponsoring veterinarians from Mexico in order to get new talent into the Houston area. We have been short 4 full time veterinarians for five years. It has caused us to have to shut down sites at various times because we just cannot get fully staffed.
We also have a mentor/training program for other organizations wanting to open clinics. We train surgical teams and surgeons.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not always been a smooth road. We lost our beloved Dr. Rundell to lung cancer. He was the veterinarian who helped me open Texas Litter Control. We also lost Dr. King to his seizure condition. He was over our surgeon training program. We lost our beloved vet technician, Greg who was a victim of domestic abuse.
The national veterinary shortage has hit us hard. Last year was particularly difficult. We were having to close so many days, it was killing us financially.
Covid was challenging for us. We suffered from a lot of bullying. Some larger organizations were trying to say spay/neuter was not an essential service and we were being irresponsible for staying open. Can you imagine the impact on our shelter if we just stopped doing spay/neuter? It would have been absolutely catastrophic.
We mostly suffer with growing pains. We did not have any grants for start up. Our funding came from just a few private donors so we didn’t have a ton of money in reserve. We are a cash and carry organization. If we can’t afford it, we don’t get it! We have no debt!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are known for our compassion for animals. We offer high quality services for a reasonable price. We have helped a lot of animals and people over the years.
We offer a variety of products and services including heartworm/flea/tick preventatives, basic annual bloodwork, vaccinations, and annual health exams for cats and dogs.
We are totally transparent. All of our pricing and policies are on our website. We have no hidden fees and there should never be any surprises.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
When you find a mentor with a successful business, LISTEN TO THEM! When I opened TLC, Dr. Wheedon with SNAP mentored me. He was at a workshop and gave me a ton of good advice. I did everything exactly like he said. A few years later he said, “Wow. That’s great. No one ever listens.” I thought that was odd. Since then I’ve mentored several organizations. Believe me, I have messed some stuff up over the years. I know where all the land mines are. I will tell others what to do and why. I swear about 90% of them nod their heads then do exactly opposite. 6 months later they call to fuss that what they are doing is not working… I’m like, “and why did you not do it the way I told you?” I have yet to get a good answer other than well, we thought this would work better…
Pricing:
- https://texaslittercontrol.org/spay-%26-neuter-pricing
- https://texaslittercontrol.org/vaccine-wellness-pricing
Contact Info:
- Website: https://texaslittercontrol.org/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/texaslittercontrol
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2760253/
- Twitter: https://x.com/TXLitterControl
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@texaslittercontrol3305
Image Credits
All of the photos were taken by Ian Cridland Photography except for the photo of the FEMA trailer. That’s the trailer I was referencing that we started in…
