Serving Pueblo and all of Southern Colorado

Since 1997

The Southern Colorado Spay and Neuter Association (referred to as “SoCO” by the community) is a low-cost, non-profit, veterinary clinic that provides affordable, preventative care to the homed and unhomed pets of southern Colorado.

As a well-established clinic, this non-profit has worked out of the same building, on the south side of Pueblo, since 1997; we have sterilized over 93,000 pets and provided hundreds of thousands of vaccines to community pets without restrictions on income.

In addition to our core mission, “to promote and provide for the humane treatment of animals through affordable population control,” SoCO operates an animal shelter and specializes in special-needs and hard-to-adopt rescue dogs and cats.

Over the years, our programs have expanded to offer a variety of assistance, based on our understanding of the community’s needs. These programs include:

1) SoCO’s Bottle Feeding program has saved hundreds of orphaned neonatal puppies and kittens since its creation in 2018. The program offers other local shelters training courses, which provides the tools and knowledge our partners and volunteers need in order to establish successful bottle-feeding programs of their own. Our outreach and no-cost training increases life-saving opportunities and simultaneously decreases the strain that the infux of these fragile orphans have on area shelters.

2) SoCo provides sponsored TNR (trap-neuter-return) clinics throughout the year to help sterilize stray cats. Food is also provided to colony managers who are responsible for feeding the colonies for which they care.

3) Our SoCO Paw Responder team exists to provide the safe capture of scared or hard-to-catch dogs. The team has volunteered countless hours, dedicating themselves to safely bringing dogs home after they have endured horrific situations, including: surviving car accidents, getting lost from their families, or being abandoned. The team utilizes state-of-the-art tools and hand-crafted humane traps to safely return owned dogs to their families, or to get unowned dogs into the safety of our shelter where they are evaluated, vetted, and placed for adoption. The SoCO Paw Responder team has been called upon to assist all over the state of Colorado, and, in the last two years, our expertise has been requested from bordering states.

4) The SoCO Buddy Program was introduced as a way for individuals or businesses to sponsor some of our special-needs dogs and cats. A sponsor fee goes directly to the care of these rescues, which includes medications like insulin for our diabetic rescues, prescription food, treats, or enrichment toys.

5) The SoCO Barn Cat Program matches up feral, or semi-feral cats with area ranches/farms, providing free pest control and to also provide a safe place for these shy kitties to thrive. All barns are pre-approved to ensure the safety of the cat.

SoCo boasts an incredibly dedicated staff of nine, which includes our staff veterinarian Dr. Kristin Ballotti, a hand-full of volunteers who want to help fulfill SoCo’s mission, and a supportive Board of Directors.

Pet Adoption

There are lots of good reasons to adopt rather than buy a pet. Here are a few of them: Buying a pet can easily cost $500 to $1,000 or more. Adoption costs range from $50 to $200, depending on whether the pet comes from the city shelter or a rescue group that has spent money on boarding, vets and grooming.

Our rescued pets are immediately evaluated by our veterinarian and a treatment plan ( if needed ) is developed. Once the rescue is deemed healthy, all vaccinations are administered and the rescue, ( if not already fixed) is sterilized. If interested in adoption, any potential adopter is sent an adoption questionnaire, and as long as guidelines are met, a meet-n-greet is scheduled!

Our Shelter

Leading the way in animal care in Pueblo, our shelter boasts about saving every treatable animal that comes through our rescue. Whether their condition is medical or physical, we will do our best to off them the best care possible. We receive cases of deformities, to diabetes, to simple upper respiratory or ringworm. Nothing really phases us, and if it comes down to an issue that our veterinary staff needs help with, we have other local veterinarians that we refer to, in order to create the best plan of care possible for each rescue. Our high quality care is known all over Colorado, with cases being sent to us from every corner of our state!

All pets are considered available for adoption, no matter their age or condition. We are sure to prepare and support any potential adopter when it comes to a special needs adoption, offering education on what the rescues needs are, how we are addressing them currently, and what the future needs may be.

We are adoption partners with Pueblo’s Petco store, and we utilize their adoption center to help get our pets out in the public eye. With their help we are able to adopt hundreds of cats and kittens every year!

Our rescue team includes all employees at SoCO. Our veterinarian, vet technicians, vet assistants, kennel assistants, and even the office staff all help with the care and welfare of our rescues.