PAWS Chicago Lurie Family Spay-Neuter Clinic

They were very kind to me and my baby Alfie and the price for her vaccinations were very reasonable I will recommend Paws to just about anyone who needs to have their dogs taken care of especially if you are a low income family they can help you out

I have nothing but positive things to say about this place. No matter how much one may love their job, it can be a bit tiring having a line of people waiting to use your service before you even arrive to work. They handle the demand with kindness, caring, and attentiveness. I’ve taken two cats to get spayed here, and have also spent time as a volunteer. I trust them 100%!
When you call to make an appointment to have your dog or cat seen you may be on hold for awhile, this because they offer free to low cost awesome care. They send you remainder texts and do several remainder phone calls before your appointment date.
I believe that caring people and services of this nature out a rarity in our society, but absolutely necessary. If you ever have time or resources to donate, please do, so that others can access this amazing service as well.

These people and this office are mostly kind and friendly, the wait is forever but for the service & price,. It is well worth it.

In response to the lady who had a very bad experience after altering her cat.
It is imperative that all cats in the humane trap or carrier remain covered with a large towel or a twin size sheet after their surgery.
It is a very traumatic experience for any animal to endure, and it is up to us their caretakers to ensure that they remain as calm as possible.
I have brought in a few male cats to get neutered, and all have been feral — all have been placed in a quiet and isolated room or garage while they recovered. Thankfully not one has reacted in a violent way.
Normally all low income spay neuter clinics offer the same advice for post surgery; and this is that the cat be placed in a calm and quiet room or area of your home; or in a TNR case the garage (weather permitting) while the cat recovers. I normally leave the males for 24 hours and the females anywhere from 24 to 36 hours; of course the cats are monitored as well while in their trap/​carrier for any signs of bleeding, etc.
I sincerely hope that your cat heals and will be up and running soon.
Best wishes.

This place is great for people wanting to get their pets fixed at a reduced price. The staff was friendly and caring. My overall experience was good while there. However, after I took my pet home it went nuts and brutally attacked everyone. We couldn’t just keep it in a carrier for 48 hours. I tried to call the clinic back and the person I spoke to was of no help. I was told to lock the animal in a room for days. I had no spare room. So now the animal is in the bathroom. No one will help or take the animal. It is still hissing and attacking people 2 days later. I’m taking it to the vet asap now.

Just brought my pup here for a neutering on Thursday. I was so nervous to get this procedure done on him as he’s only 16 weeks and 7#, but they were thorough on the procedure protocols and assured me he’d be fine. And sure enough he was up and running when I picked him up. I could not be happier to have brought him in. The guy explaining everything was friendly and the veterinarian was beyond nice. Definitely recommending this place for my fellow pet parent friends.

I’m fostering an adorable shihtzu from PAWS right now and the process has been so smooth! The staff here are very responsible, caring, and punctual about responding to questions and prepping families throughout the foster process with food, a crate, collar/​leash, etc. If you’re looking to foster or adopt, you should definitely check them out! I am a first time foster parent and everything has been great so far.

They are very reasonable priced. But now, I believe my puppy has some sort of UTI after I got her spayed there a couple weeks ago. Honestly, she had been acting weird since we had gotten it and I thought it was just going to fade away but now shes bleeding when she urinates and urinating more often and shaking because it hurts her. So, in all reality, Im probably going to end up paying more to find out whats wrong with her now and treat her than I would have if I went to a regular vet. :/

It’s a shame I did not have a wonderful experience here like many other people have. There were many complications after surgery for my cat. It all started when I went to pick him up, there was blood ALL over the inside of his crate. The tech tried to tell me that was normal. If you would’ve seen the amount of blood… No way. I will spare you the rest of the details, but my cat almost died after having surgery there. Never again will I bring another pet there just to save some money. Didn’t even really save money when I had to bring him to another vet to get him treated afterwards.

Pros: The staff are truly animal lover. I felt comfortable leaving my 8month old cockatoo in their care. I did wait about an hour to be seen but it wasn’t unbearable. Money is a bit right now and Paws has a great reputation.
Cons: I had to wait an hr to be seen (if you are impatient don’t bother). Could get loud with some barking dogs. My dog was sent home with no pain meds and no antibiotics. Plan on losing a day due to drop off and pick up time. Internal metal suturing.
I looked over reviews briefly know that paws had a good reputation. It was affordable and like I said above they were friendly and truly care about your pet. I had no questions leaving her there. Money being tight I wanted to be a responsible owner and get her spayed, but also keep her safe and happy. They also gave her some vaccinations she was due for and pulled a stubborn baby tooth. After picking her up they gave me no pain meds or antibiotics like the vet did with my older dog (which I would have happily paid for). When I asked about them the just said no and that I could see my regular vet if I wanted them. I also didn’t know that they used internal metal suture and not dissolvable ones. That was my fault for not researching very deeply, but I had only heard wonderful things. Had I have known those two bits I would have chosen to take her to my vet.
After 24 hrs my dogs has not urinated so I called my vet this am to has her checked out and to hopefully get her some pain meds to make her more comfortable. I will update.
If you are low income or in a financial bind I would say to bring your pet here to them, just make sure you know all the facts. I love that Paws offer discount for people on public aide, and certain zip codes. For the comments below that say how unfair it is, they are selfish and cheap. The reason these neighborhoods have these discount is because of the amount of stray dogs and cats due to unwanted pregnancies. Paws is protecting the neighbors and the animals.

PAWS does a great job!
I’ve read some reviews and I see a lot of people are unhappy about the metal staples used to close the operation site on their spayed pet — metal staples are used for a very simple reason, if your pet gets out somehow, they get caught by a pound or something, they will know immediately that your cat/​dog has been spayed and its chances should you not claim it back are much higher of ever making to adoption floor! Some places instead tattoo a green line on your pet’s belly as a sign that the animal has been spayed but you cannot expect to pay $ 15 – 25 for a SURGERY and then a tattoo. This place is LOW-​COST, they do the absolute minimum to keep the cost down because they are not making a profit anyhow. A spay surgery can take 20−30min for a experienced vet surgeon but it is not an easy surgery!
The only advice I have for people unhappy with it is that there are a lot of vet clinics and they all offer spay/​neuter, since they will bill you more money they can afford to go the extra mile — the spay surgery site is much larger in those cases so they can remove all internal sex organs — they provide all anesthetics/​pain killers (for extra cost — just like your dentist) and so on.

We just got our new kitten Khaleesi spayed here. So far so good. The place is located in a little bit of a shady neighborhood, but it’s cheap so I can’t really complain much. If you are planning on coming here, be ready for an early 6:45 appointment. We showed up on time and there was only standing room. It didn’t really help that some people seemed to have brought everyone in their immediate family and parts of their extended family as well. They should really have a 2 person max per animal. It really is excessive to bring more people than that to have your animal neutered. Plus the place is VERY small.
The wait is long. We were there for 3 hours. To be fair they did warn us of this when we made our appointment so I can’t hold it against them. You need to bring a carrier for your pet! They sell them here for $ 5 for a cardboard one, if you don’t have one. There was a man here the time that I went that got annoyed because his cat was meowing in the carrier so he took her out and put her in his jacket. The cat ended up getting freaked out because of the other animals and started to claw at the man and move around his jacket so he was dancing around trying to get the pissed off cat out. It took him and his mother to get the cat out. All while the lady at the desk was screaming at him to put the cat back in the carrier! haha so funny.
The vet was very nice and she was gentle with our cat even while Khaleesi was hissing and scratching at her, They make you watch a 20 min video when you pick your pet up and tell you if you have any problems to bring her home. Khaleesi seems to be healing just fine and is very happy. At this point we feel it went well and have no complaints.

Our puppy had difficulty following his neutering experience at Paws, however Rochelle was kind enough to follow-​up with us and offer assistance in any way she could. It turns out our puppy simply had a reaction to the material that was used for his stitches. We were informed the Paws vet would be following up with our vet to assist in any additional way in treating our pup.
I appreciate the kind words and professional manner that Rochelle exhibited, and her follow-​up changed my initial feeling about the experience.

Place can get pretty crowded so go as early as possible. staff was friendly, and I love the fact that it was low cost spay/​neuter and everything this place stands for.
2 days later and my 8 month old pitbull is like she never even gotten spayed.
One Thing That Does Bother Me Though, is that they used metal stitches on the inside and apparently those STAY IN FOR LIFE. I don’t know if I like that very much, I’ve tried to do a little research but there’s not much on this topic, but people have said that the stitches can poke through the skin after a couple years and they’ll need to get trimmed.
UPDATE: after leaving my review I was promptly contacted by a member of PAWS and she assured me that the stitches will not cause her harm, and that on rare ocassions the stitches do poke out but it’s just a matter of trimming them (which they will do for free) very happy that they took the time out of their very busy schedule to call me just to reassure me :).
I do wish that they offered options like dissolvable stitches or regular stitches even if it meant an extra fee out of pocket.

Wonderful place that is affordable and very gentle to your dogs and cats. I had an alleycat that would frequent my back porch last fall. Eventually the weather got colder (yup, that’s Chicago most of the year lol), and this cat would sleep against my back door because of the heat that would seep from underneath it. He was friendly and all since he was hungry… but I wasn’t much of a cat-​person. I knew this cat had no home (many stray cats in my area) and I wanted to give this guy a fighting chance at life.
So after looking up this clinic (great website btw), they had a «TNR program» for feral cats. This means that you stop at the clinic, put down a deposit for a cat-​trap/​cage and teach you how to use it. (You MUST bring the cat in this cage for the TNR program — otherwise they won’t accept the cat and the price increases dramatically). Basically put a lil tuna inside, put a cloth over the cage, and just wait for the cat to enter — their weight makes the backdoor close. TaDa, you just trapped your cat.
I had this cat in my room and he was making a racket trying to get out — really tears at your heart strings. Anyways, the TNR program costs just $ 20 for:
–neuter/​spay
–vaccinations
–ear cleaning
–flea/​tick treatment
–and $ 6 for a microchip to be embedded in their skin.
6 hours after dropping off the lil cat, I picked him up, he was drowsy and outta it from the anesthesia. They told me that I need to keep him in the cage in my room for the next 24 hours — no food, just water. Eventually the anesthesia wore off, the cat was totally ok and I released him back were I got him.
The next day, the cat came back, the winter started to settle in, and I took him inside. He got all of his medical needs taken care of for under $ 30 and has a clean bill of health.
After 8 months, I can officially say that I am now a cat-​person — it just took one perseverant cat to change my mind.
Great place, I highly recommend them, even if you don’t have a feral/​stray cat.

I had a puppy emergency today. Today being Sunday, nothing was open. I adopted her at a different shelter and her spay was done there also. Unfortunately their clinic was closed today. I called her in a panic because I noticed that her incision looked extremely infected and that the stitches might have broke open. I explained the situation to them and they told me quite rudely I was S.O.L. because I didn’t adopt her through PAWS or have the operation done there. I was disgusted. I wasn’t looking for a freebie or anything like that I’d like to add. I just wanted to get my puppy the medical attention she needed. I eventually found a clinic that was open and looked at her EVEN THOUGH I DIDN’T ADOPT THERE. They took great care of her and she’s going to be fine. But for a company with such a reputation for being so compassionate and loving, they sure are elitist. Shame on you.

Saying good-​bye to the World’s Greatest Dog…
Through a series of events it became clear that the hubs and I were not providing the type of life that our pup deserved. We both recently took jobs that caused us to have longer commutes, which meant many long hours in the house and crate for our doggy. We tried supplement his days with doggie daycare, but ultimately we knew that this was just not the life that our pride and joy deserved. We made the difficult decision put our dog up for adoption. We naturally thought of PAWS. Having heard about all the amazing things that this organizations does, we thought this would be the best place to help us with our good boy.
We set an appointment and had begun the emotional process of saying goodbye. PAWS did not make this process easy. The people at the facility were to put it plainly unsympathetic. I understand that most of the people who work there are dog lovers, but they clearly are not fans of people. We were never once assure that we were making the right decision for choosing the happiest of our dog over our selfish desires to keep him forever.
While the experience sucked and the people at PAWS were totally not cool, we know that in the end everything will work out for the best. Our pooch will make some family extremely happy as he’s made us.

Made an appt to get my cat neutered, which was easy enough. I was scheduled within a week’s time and told to arrive at 6:45am along with some other easy to follow instructions. When I arrived, there was already a line of ~10 people in front of me and the total time spent there was around 1hr 15min.
I got my cat back around 5pm and the pick-​up process took about 20 min because you watch a video explaining how to treat your post-​op pet. I ended up paying $ 100; $ 25 for the surgery, $ 25 for the mircochip, and $ 50 for a couple of shots my cat was due on. Overall that beats going to any vet for the procedure.

Let me first preface with how much I appreciate what Paws Chicago is all about! I fully support their mission in our community and their success with decreasing the feral animal population.
But please let me tell you about my 2 female Himalayan kittens i took to the Laurie Clinic to get spayed in the Spring of 2009.
I had to take BOTH of my kitties back in for post– surgery follow up visit due to to complications from their surgeries.
1^st– Hilo, sweet blue eyed smooshed face lovie, had a bad reaction to the surgical glue used to close the skin-​incision. It became very infected and she was put on antibiotics which helped over a 2 week period.
ok, sometimes these things happen was my thought process back then in April. Plus, I DO have sensitive pets.
NOW GET READY FOR THIS:
2^nd– Mika, the «big sister» blue eyed beauty, had surgery the same day as her sis Hilo. 2 MONTHS POST SURGERY I noticed a steel staple sticking out of her abdomen. I kidd you not. it was evident mika wasn’t feeling well, and i immediately took her to Paws where they removed the string of steel wire they use on ALL FEMALE ANIMALS to stitch closed the «body wall» underneath the skin. The skin is then closed with surgical glue.
I was sick to my stomach that my poor kitty was in such pain, and that the Paws clinic vet pulled out the string of surgical steel wire while my kitty was fully conscious. Mika was given no pain meds, but an antibiotic was given for infection.
why, steel wire is used to close the incision, is a mystery to me when more technologically advanced tools are readily accessible! That steel wire is PERMANENTLY in their bellies, and could come unravelled at anytime during the pets lifespan. this is what happened to my Mika 2 months post surgery.
Mika is recovering well, thank the lord.
so here is the controversy, right?
as the saying goes, «you get what you pay for» right?
Well, NO!!!
when it comes to medical care — affordable or not– Why is the the norm in an American Democratic society?
I don’t want to say the typical– «Next time I will learn my lesson and take my pets to a full priced Vet and not a low –cost clinic»
I WANT to support and contribute to Paws Chicago, and other non-​profit clinics in our community.
We as collective consumers, pet lovers, and protective «pet parents» need to ensure that these valuable organizations are hiring competent surgeons and staff that aim to serve the community and our pets well!
More accountability needs to be placed on these non-​profits directors, to oversee their staff to serve the community with integrity and be held to the highest standard, comparable to any Veterinarian.
I will continue to support Paws Chicago, and as a concerned community member, voice my concern in ensuring safe, comprehensive pet surgical practices are being proved to the public by Paws Chicago.
Please just be aware that female spaying is more involved, has higher risks involved for complications than male neutering be sure to ASK QUESTIONS when you leave your precious pet in their hands. LEARN the stats, Find out WHO will be performing the surgery and let Paws staff and vet techs know that you want to be informed/​involved in every step of the surgery process.
I do not believe that Paws surgeons performed either of my 2 kitties surgeries properly. The complications involved were due to negligence and sloppy surgical procedures.
the Lead Paws Clinic vet told me there is approx. 1 death in every 1500 pets from standard spay/​neuter surgeries and Paws performs 15,000 surgeries per year.
however what she failed to explain was the rate of potential post surgery complications. I am certain that statistic is significant.
Thank you for reading.

I made an appointment with a receptionist for my 8-​month old yorkie poo to get neutered and a couple weeks later, I brought my pup in. I had to get there between 7:15a and 7:45a. That wasn’t too bad since I could find parking on the street more easily at this time of day.
The wait for my dog to get called up was about an hour and a half, but it was tolerable. The other people that I was waiting with made the time go by faster since we shared stories and talked about our pets.
When I was called up and had time to speak with the vet, I told her that some of my dog’s baby teeth were still in (about four of them). She said that it wasn’t a problem to have those removed along with getting him neutered. It was an additional charge of $ 50. What a deal!
After saying goodbye to my dog, I was told to come back at 4:30p the same day to pick up my dog. When I went back to the location, it took half an hour to get called up, but once they released him to me, he seemed to be his normal self, bursting with energy.
Overall, I would have to say that everybody that worked there was very pleasant and responsive to my questions.
Thanks PAWS Chicago!

So, this is my 200^th review. I wanted it to be special. I decided to finally review Paws. I know it’s going to be controversial. I’m sure people will be pissed off. All the makings for a 200^th review if you ask me…
I brought my pup here to be spayed. The whole wait process is excruciating. It reminds me of the wait at Cook County Hospital (shuddering at the thought). The staff was nice enough I suppose. Some random puppy was pooping all the floor. I sat with my pup huddled in the chair. I didn’t want to touch ANYTHING. Too many people and too many dogs. Oh and the sign about no kids in the waiting area? ha! You can forget that. My favorite part was when a lady came to drop off her 6 cats. The whole waiting area smelled like cat urine.
Anyway. I leave my pup and when I return to get her she’s barely moving. So I pick her up and she Unilocal.Of course this freaked me and everyone else in the waiting area out. The worker has the nerve to tell me «Oh she’s been our little drama queen today» This pissed me off to no end. How dare she blow off my dog’s feelings? Maybe she was trying to tell you something lady! (I’m getting upset just thinking about it…) Oh and I really hate the fact that they send the dog home with NOTHING but a cone on their head. No antibiotics… pain meds… NOTHING. So of course my pup doesn’t get any better. I end up taking her to the vet and she has an infection and a fever. So I ended up spending the money anyway.
After this whole ordeal I got to thinking…
1. Would I ever take my child to the free clinic?
2. Would I ever think it’s okay for someone to perform same day surgery on someone I love and send them home with no meds?
3. Is it really worth it to treat something I love this way just to save some money?
HELL NO.

Fantastic organization.
Took my little black kitty here for a routine spay surgery, dropped her off early, picked her up later (albeit a more pissy kitty, doing just fine). The entire process was simple, the staff was helpful… organized, facility is clean.
And you cannot beat the price: $ 25 (cats). It’s literally hundreds less than the vet. They do Sunday surgeries, which is great for us M-​F workers! (and yes, it is VERY early, but so worth the trip).