The National Desexing Network (NDN) is a nationwide referral system for discounted desexing made available to pet owners in financial need. Our goal is to end pet overpopulation by making this service more affordable to those who might not otherwise be in a position to desex their pets.

Australia has one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world. Four out of five Australians have owned a pet at some time and almost two-thirds of Australian households currently own pets. Despite these figures, hundreds of thousands of healthy cats and dogs are euthanased each year in pounds and shelters nationwide. Due to the ongoing problem of pet overpopulation, these healthy, loving animals are being killed because there are not enough homes available.

Now in its second year of operation, NDN has a nationwide network of more than 120 participating veterinary clinics. We are most thankful to those veterinarians but always endeavour to recruit more in order to extend our program further.

In August, NDN organises National Desexing Month, a big success in its inaugural year 2005. During this month, welfare organisations, veterinarians, pounds and councils are encouraged to raise awareness about pet overpopulation and promote desexing as a humane method of solvong it.

Together with parent organisation, the Animal Welfare League of Qld, NDN will organise the National Summit To End Pet Overpopulation, June 15-17, 2006. This inaugural summit aims to bring together all stakeholders to share challenges and effective strategies and to set targets to reduce the numbers of animals euthanased in Australia.

NDN works closely with SPAY/USA, a well established desexing network in America. In the last 14 years, SPAY/USA has facilitated 100,000s desexing procedures, thereby causing a significant drop in the numbers of pets euthanased annually. To date more than 7,000 vets have joined SPAY/USA.

NDN is a charitable program funded through the generousity of members of the public who strongly believe in desexing. The only beneficiaries of the program are Australia's cats and dogs.