Calder Vets Veterinary Surgeons Jane Scott and Lindsey Gould update us on their Mission Rabies project.
Well what a brilliant start to our Mission Rabies project with yesterday being World Rabies Day! Our days are starting early when we head out in our trucks with our team of dog catchers to an area of the city assigned to us for that day. Using a GPS we then walk every street in that area looking for dogs to vaccinate! Catching the stray dogs is easier said than done as at first sight of our yellow t-shirts and nets they scarper but the dog catchers do a great job. The location, age, sex and neuter status of every dog is recorded and if the dog is owned then a phone number is taken so a reminder text can be sent in 12 months for the next injection. After a couple of hours we have a break for breakfast (much needed as the heat and humidity is almost unbearable). The local breakfast is dosa – a large pancake filled with curried potato – it’s delicious! It’s then back to the streets for the rest of the morning and again in the afternoon, usually until about 6-7pm.
Yesterday we joined the World Rabies Day celebrations. Together with local school children we paraded through the city with placards and chanting ‘Rabies, Rabies down down, Mission Rabies is in town!’ to raise awareness of the campaign. This was followed by entertainment by local dancers and a play acted out by some of the children teaching others how to approach dogs to avoid dog bites and what to do if they are bitten.
The support for the project here is brilliant. Everyone we have met has been really grateful for what we are doing. The task is huge and it’s exhausting work but it’s certainly feeling like we’re doing something really worthwhile!
Any support that you can offer to the project would be greatly appreciated and will go directly towards helping to eradicate this devastating but completely preventable disease. Donations can be made via our just giving page (www.justgiving.com/mission-rabies) or in any of the Calder Vets branches. With your help Mission Rabies can achieve their aim of eradicating the world from Rabies by 2030.
Thank you.
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