Frankie’s Friends Cat Rescue will have a new veterinarian when it resumes spaying and neutering cats for the public this week.

West Deer native Dr. Brandy East is replacing Dr. Becky Morrow, who founded the New Kensington nonprofit in 2010 and left in June to become a clinical assistant professor at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine.

Frankie’s Friends was forced to curtail its services after Morrow’s departure. It will reopen to clients Monday, clinic Manager Kelly Lassinger said.

Morrow started Frankie’s Friends following the 2008 raid of the Tiger Ranch cat sanctuary in Frazer. It was named for one of the surviving cats, which since has died.

East has signed a one-year contract, Lassinger said.

“We’re more than thrilled,” Lassinger said. “We were all a little worried for sure it would take us forever to find a veterinarian that would do this.”

Frankie’s Friends will focus on spay and neuters for the first couple of months with East at the helm, Lassinger said. It will open up to other surgeries and dental work beginning in 2022.

A 1995 Deer Lakes graduate, East, 44, graduated from Penn State University in 1998 with a degree in animal bioscience and then attended a two-year post-baccalaureate program at Duquesne University. She graduated from the veterinary school at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 2006.

She and her husband, Nate, who works in information technology, have two sons, Jace, 7, and Gideon, 4.

East is coming to Frankie’s Friends from Veterinary Centers of America in Fox Chapel, where she worked for 15 years.

East said surgery was the main drive behind her becoming a veterinarian, and being at Frankie’s Friends will allow her to do it more often.

“I’ve always loved surgery,” she said. “I had surgery one day a week at Fox Chapel. At Frankie’s, we’re doing surgery four days a week. I get to practice what I love a lot more often that way.”

Finding a replacement for Morrow, who remains the organization’s president and medical director, was not easy, Lassinger said.

“We didn’t have many people able to come and do what we do. We are a nonprofit organization and a high volume organization. It’s really hard to get veterinarians to do what we do,” she said.

Lassinger said East visited before Morrow left and watched her perform surgeries.

“She was very interested. She likes what our mission is,” Lassinger said. “We’re more than thrilled we have somebody who has it in their heart to do the same thing we do. It has to be in your heart to do what we do. It’s not an easy job, that’s for sure.

“We get the worst of the worst here,” she said. “We get the ones that most places would recommend euthanasia, where we try to save everybody.”

Frankie’s Friends is now fully located at 730 Fifth Ave., after selling the building that housed its clinic on Ninth Street in April. Since they’ll be doing fewer surgeries than usual upon reopening next week, Lassinger recommends scheduling appointments.

“I was really impressed with their mission,” East said of Frankie’s Friends. “Finding these guys homes, finding them a better life, I think they really do make a difference and I wanted to be a part of that.”

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