Temma Martin’s personalized license plate reads “PETLADY.” As it should. For nearly 30 years, she has been the voice for pet protection in Utah, both before and after they’re born. Her latest efforts are part of the new nonprofit she has founded and created, “Operation Pawpulation” in Millcreek.

The clinic focuses on spay/neuter services, coming at a time when the numbers of dogs and cats in animal shelters have been increasing. She has championed adoption for decades, but has turned her efforts into prevention of unplanned litters for dogs and cats. Martin first became involved in this world while she was in college, concerned about animal welfare but not really thinking it would become her career.

“I didn't start in any other area or direction,” she said. “When I was finishing my senior year of high school in Colorado, I got a little bit involved with animal rights stuff, like protesting research labs and more like actual animal rights than animal welfare. So I was sort of interested then, but when I moved back here, I worked at several businesses. When I worked at Golden Swirl’s corporate office, I saw an ad in the paper for a job posted at the Humane Society of Utah in 1993 for an education director.”

She worked for them for four years but felt she wanted to do more public relations, so after a short stint with the American Heart Association, she became media specialist for Salt Lake County Animal Services.

In that role, Martin appeared on every local TV morning program — news or lifestyle shows —  bringing dogs or cats on air who were waiting for adoption from the shelter. She brought on an estimated 5,000 animals over her career, and her name and face became synonymous with pet adoption in the Salt Lake market. It often meant going to the shelter in very early morning hours, waking up a pet to take them to a station, and all four local TV stations had segments with her regularly. 

A countywide reduction of force led to her leaving the post in 2008. She was quickly approached by the Utah Animal Adoption Center, where she worked for one year, then joined Best Friends Animal Society.

Dr. Emily Kirkpatrick offers her veterinary services to Operation Pawpulation on Thursdays each week. (Photo courtesy of Operation Pawpulation)

Her messages about pet adoption helped. When the No More Homeless Pets coalition started in 1999, Utah shelters were alarmingly still killing almost 40,000 pets a year. But by 2020, with more and more no-kill shelters coming online, that number had fallen to 829. 

Good news, with numbers headed in the right direction toward making Utah a no-kill state. Then COVID arrived, and things changed. Today, an average of 2,000 dogs and cats are euthanized in Utah.

“The numbers of animals killed has steadily increased, not just in Utah, but across the country,” she said. “People are watching what feels like a pretty major backsliding of progress, and some of the reasons for that are there’s a shortage of veterinarians. A lot of veterinary clinics are being bought out by corporations and private equity firms, and prices of all veterinary care have risen at a rate much higher than the rate of inflation.”

Two years ago, she left Best Friends to start her own nonprofit using her own money. She bought a storefront in Millcreek that was once a boat repair shop to create a clinic offering spay/neuter services to pet owners at very reduced costs, a service that she says has “gotten outrageously expensive in a lot of places.” She said the universe had something else in mind for her.

“I made some phone calls to clinics in Salt Lake County, and some of them are places I either am or have been a client,” Martin said. “A cat neuter is the lowest. They’re the least expensive and quickest surgery. And so on the low end, I believe it was just less than $300 for a cat, but on the high end, for a large dog spay, one clinic said that it could be more than $2,000. Most people can’t afford that — it’s a mortgage payment, a rent payment. So for a lot of people it’s out of reach. And for some reason, even nationally, a lot of animal welfare organizations have shifted their focus away from spay/neuter, which is largely why I felt like I needed to go off on my own.”

Shelter Animals Count, a trusted source for animal sheltering data, has reported that 28% of the 2.9 million dogs entering shelters in the U.S. were puppies under 5 months old. That was an increase of more than 31,000 from the year before. More than half of the felines entering shelters were under five months old as well — 1.7 million. Those are signs of unwanted or unplanned litters of young animals given up to shelters.

“We can’t solve this problem after all the pets are born,” she said. “There will always be people who choose to buy pets, but there are so many pets in need outside of shelters. The only way we can get back on track is getting pets spayed or neutered and prevent the downstream that creates animals in need.”

Martin is proud of the 5,000-plus animals she took on TV for adoption, but “we can help a much larger number of animals by preventing them from being born. Coupled with the shortage of veterinarians, we need to refocus on spay/neuter as a normal part of pet ownership.”

Operation Pawpulation is open on Thursdays. Call 801-509-8334 to set up an appointment or get more information.