Altered Tails

Altered Tails is a nonprofit spay/neuter clinic founded in 2003 to make affordable, accessible sterilization surgery available across the Phoenix, Arizona area. The organization began with a mobile clinic serving underserved communities before local philanthropists Bea and Dick Barnhart donated a building in 2007, allowing Altered Tails to open its first stationary location, the Barnhart Clinic, in 2009. By 2012, Altered Tails had become the first Humane Alliance-certified clinic in Arizona, and a second location opened in Mesa in 2013 to expand its reach; the two clinics performed more than 17,000 surgeries by the end of 2014. In 2015, Altered Tails launched its W.A.G.S. transport program to help pet owners without a way to get their animal to the clinic. In August 2024, the organization downsized to focus solely on its original Phoenix location. Altered Tails serves owned pets, rescue organizations preparing animals for adoption, and groups practicing trap-neuter-return with free-roaming cats, and has sterilized more than 225,000 dogs and cats since it began. The clinic is open Tuesday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.