For decades, the success of Animal Birth Control (ABC) programs has been measured by a single, cold metric: The number of dogs operated per day (or by week/month/since the agency begun working in an area).

This method of measuring success has made the ABC-program -sector to fall into a dangerous habit: valuing the veterinarian only for the mechanical speed of their hands.  

The “per-dog” payment model, a staple of many municipal tenders and high-volume campaigns, treats the surgeon as a commodity—a variable cost that can be squeezed for maximum output. But as we look toward the national drive for humane dog population management and rabies elimination, we need to be able to identify and acknowledge the dangers that this payment model causes for the success and sustainability of the program.

When veterinarians’ salary is based on the number of dogs they operate, it leads to the vets often being treated less like a medical professionals and more like a high-speed component in a surgical factory. When we pay “per dog operated,” we stop paying for expertise, clinical judgment, and patient safety—we start paying for speed.

To build a high-quality, resilient veterinary profession that is able to meet the needs of surgical sterilisation of roaming dogs in India, we must move toward a monthly salary or per-day salary structure.

It is time to de-commoditise the veterinarian.

Why “Per-Head” Funding Fails

The “per-head” model,  has created a race to the bottom. When a surgeon’s income is tied strictly to volume, the “hidden” essentials of veterinary medicine begin to erode:

The Mentorship Gap: A “commodity” vet cannot afford the time to teach a junior. Every minute spent explaining a ligature or a hand-tie is literally “money out of their pocket.” This has also led to a situation where traditional ABC centers have to stop their surgeries the moment their only vet leaves for another job, because they have not invested in having a junior to learn alongside to be able to take up the place of the main surgeon when needed.

In the contrary, a closed-loop system as a veterinary staffing model ensures that senior vets stay at the job for long enough to enable them to train and pass their skills to the juniors working alongside of them.

Clinical Erosion: To maintain speed, the Safety Floor often drops. Multimodal anesthesia is replaced by “quick” protocols, and post-operative monitoring is left to untrained staff. Maintaining dogs under ‘post-operative veterinary care’ for days should not mean that they are simply locked up in kennels for a specified number of days without having a vet to actually observe their healing.

Antimicrobial Misuse: When volume is the priority, antibiotics are often used as a “safety net” to compensate for rushed aseptic techniques, contributing to the global threat of antimicrobial resistance. As per the global guidelines for  use of antibiotics in surgical cases, antibiotics should not be routinely used at all in clean/incised elective surgeries such as spay/neuter. Not before, not during and not after the surgery.

Three Ways to Reclaim Professionalism

To fix the system, we must change how we value the person behind the scalpel. Here is how we transition from a transactional model to a professional one:

1. The Shift to Professional monthly salary or per day rates

We must move toward a monthly salary model (or a day rate based on a monthly salary for relief and freelance work). A  day rate  ensures that the veterinarian is “the doctor on duty,” not just a surgical contractor. This encourages:

Holistic Patient Ownership: The vet stays for the recovery of the first dog while preparing for the last. The vet is also available every day for post-operative rounds and able to timely attend any noted complications.

Quality over Quota: The vet can handle a complex pyometra or a complication without being financially penalized for the extra time it takes.

Career longevity and focus on clinical excellence: The per dog rate system creates “surgical mercenaries.” While it rewards speed, it offers no career longevity. By offering a predictable daily salary, we transform freelance and ABC work into a viable, long-term career path. Stability allows a vet to focus on clinical excellence rather than a daily “headcount,” ensuring that our most skilled surgeons stay in the welfare sector where they are needed most.

2. Standardizing the “Safety Floor”

A high-quality workforce is defined by its lowest common denominator—the Safety Floor. Under transactional payment models, the incentive is to cut corners to save time:

• Asepsisis rushed.

• Pain managementis simplified.

• Anesthesia monitoringis delegated to untrained staff or ignored.

A day-rate salary decouples income from speed. It empowers the veterinarian to say, “This dog needs another 10 minutes for stabilization,” without calculating the cost to their pocket. It ensures that the Spectrum of Care and clinical safety remain non-negotiable, protecting both the patient and the professional reputation of the vet and the clinic.

De-commoditisation requires a baseline of excellence that cannot be compromised for cost. Every program (whether arranged by NGO, private, or government sector) must adhere to a non-negotiable Safety Floor, including:

• Mandatory anesthesia monitoring (manual or electronic).

• Multimodal pain management.

• Sterile surgical barriers (instruments, gloves, masks, and drapes).

3. Focus on mentorship

India faces a massive shortage of skilled veterinary surgeons to work in the ABC sector.  In a “per-dog” system, mentorship is a financial penalty; every minute a senior vet spends teaching a junior is “lost” income and therefore the greatest casualty of the veterinary commoditisation is the next generation of Indian vets. When we de-commoditise the role, we turn the senior surgeon into a mentor.

In a professional salary model for ABC programs, a vet has the time and incentive to guide a junior colleague through their first spay. This “closed loop” -model of integrated workplace mentorship is the only way to build a sustainable, high-quality veterinary workforce to support humane dog population management by surgical sterilization of roaming dogs .