ICAWC

Dr. Abdul Rahman’s topic for the day is one that will be of interest and relevant to any animal welfare organization working in a developing country with a street dog issue: dog population control.

75% of the world’s dogs are strays and they are the ones that cause people problems; they can either love them or hate them, pointed out Dr. Rahman. People in India didn’t understand why anyone should help the dogs and not the people!

It’s critical to change hearts and minds by explaining that stray animals are a human problem. Dogs carry rabies, we treat the dogs so that we can eradicate rabies from humans.

People in India loves dogs, but many can’t afford to own one. Dogs are feral, they don’t belong to one person but are they really ‘stray’ if people are feeding them?

Stray dogs come from three sources:

• Irresponsible ownership
• Uncontrolled breeding
• Capacity of the environment – e.g rubbish

In Jaipur there are now no deaths from rabies thanks to a successful dog control programme. The Indian average of rural deaths from the zoonotic disease is 18,000. These are amazing statistics, achieved with amazing work.

It is important to note that control programmes cannot be used in isolation. You need a vaccination programme too, but if you don’t vaccinate 100% of dogs then the programme is not doomed to failure; inoculating the majority can still protect the whole community. 70% of the dogs in Jaipur are vaccinated.

Is this something you’d like to hear more about? Learning from the experiences of people like Dr. Rahman is another good reason to put ICAWC 2010 on your calendar! And don’t forget to visit our Facebook Page for constant updates and snippets from speakers.

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