‘Raksha,’ the Kerala Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences University (KVASU)’s project for controlling stray dog menace, was officially inaugurated in Kozhikode on Sunday.
Though implemented as a pilot project in Thiruvananthapuram, the project is being implemented in its true sense for the first time under the aegis of the Kozhikode Corporation, which is bearing all the expenses for the sterilisation and rabies vaccination of the stray dogs in its limits.
Inaugurating the project, Minister for Agriculture and Animal Welfare K.P. Mohanan said preventing procreation was the only way to control the menace.
Administering rabies vaccines was an additional precautionary measure, he added. Mayor A.K. Premajam presided over the function.
A five-day sterilisation camp, under the Animal Birth Control (ABC) project of the Kozhikode Corporation, was also launched on the occasion. The Corporation’s job is to capture dogs from each ward during these five days, protect them in captivity for a day and prepare them for the surgery to be performed by expert surgeons from the KVASU’s Veterinary College at Pookode in Wayanad in a specially designed Veterinary Critical Care unit.
The captured dogs, both male and female, are sedated before they undergo a Laparoscopic surgery.
Post surgery, the dogs are protected for another four days while they are administered antibiotics. The Rabies vaccine is administered just before they are left back on te streets.
To eliminate the possibility of native dog breeds getting extinct, the Corporation has to also take steps to protect selected pure-breed dogs and encourage members of the public to adopt them.
An ABC Support Group was formed to enable this as well as to ensure public participation in the project.
