Seated at one of several tables at the Montana Spay Neuter Task Force — Helena’s clinic Sunday, 13-year-old Sophie Paton rubbed Coco’s fur, and blew in his ears in an effort to help the sleepy feline shake off the effects of anesthetic.

Periodically, Paton would stop stroking the cat, check to make sure he was still breathing steadily, then peer into his eyes, waiting for a sign that Coco was regaining consciousness after his operation.

Once Coco was able to focus his gaze, and stand up by himself, he would be returned to his owner, and Paton would prepare her work space for another patient.

“I like waking them up,” Paton said, adjusting a sock filled with rice heated in a microwave against the cat’s back, making sure he was staying warm. “I know I’m helping a lot of animals.”

Paton was one of a steady stream of volunteers that filtered into the makeshift veterinary clinic located in a warehouse at the corner of 18th and Billings this weekend to help members of the task force perform jobs ranging from shaving cats for surgery, to sterilizing surgical instruments.

Jane Benson, Spay Neuter Improves Pets (SNIP) coordinator, said it was hard to estimate how many community members volunteered their time to join with veterinarians to assist with the free clinic which ran Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., but said organizers managed to spay or neuter more than 300 cats in that period.

According to Benson, the cats came in all shapes and sizes — from nursing mothers to feral tom cats — but all left the clinic to enjoy a better quality of life.

Benson explained that the Helena area is experiencing a staggering increase in its cat population, and every spay and neuter performed at the clinic made a difference.

“We just have a horrendous number of cats in the area,” she said, adding that the last thing she wants to see is an increase in that population. For that reason, members of the local SNIP committee chose to dedicate the weekend’s clinic solely to cats.

Inside the warehouse, visitors walked into a registration area where they dropped off their cats, answering questions about the animals’ age, health and more.

From there, the cats were taken to an enclosed room where they were placed in a cloth bag — for the handlers’ protection — and shot in the haunch with anesthetic.

Once the animals were sleeping soundly, they were taken to an area where they were shaved, then strapped onto a steel tray for the veterinarians’ convenience.

The veterinarians — including Helena resident Tia Nelson — worked feverishly to complete the animals’ operations, and get the felines to the recovery area where the people responsible for waking them up took over.

Before any of the cats could go home with their owners, they were examined once again, and their owners briefed on proper post-operative care of their pets.

“It’s really controlled chaos,” said Lisa Peterson, one of the clinic organizers, of the operation.

She added that while handling cats in such volume is exhausting work, the effort is an important one.

“This is a really cool event,” Peterson said. “We want every single one of these cats to grow up to have a home.”

Helena resident Karry Hauck said she first got involved in assisting with the clinics last year, and says she and her children will continue to lend a hand in the future.

“It’s become a kind of family volunteer type of thing,” she said.

In its first, five-day event, held in October 2004, 384 dogs and 970 cats were spayed or neutered by 12 vets. In a two-day event in 2005, about 400 cats and 140 dogs were spayed or neutered.

Benson said plans are to host another clinic — for cats and dogs — on Sept. 16 and Sept. 17. The group has not yet confirmed a location for that event.