CEBU, Philippines - To encourage the dog owners to have their pets vaccinated against rabies, Cebu City veterinarian Alice Utlang said her office is offering free registration of dogs and cats until on June 30.
Utlang said everyday, the personnel from the Department of Veterinary Medicine and Fisheries are in the field prioritizing those barangays that have rabies cases last year.
She said pet owners who want to avail of the free registration can save P150 for the usual registration fee for each animal. Once a vaccinated dog bites a person, there is little chance that it can cause rabies.
Rabies is a viral infection that can be transmitted to humans. The virus that can be transmitted through the dog’s saliva can kill a person once it will reach the central nervous system.
Among those barangays that have rabies cases last year are Guadalupe, Punta Princesa, Kalunasan and Pardo. Last Friday, Utlang and her personnel were in Barangay Guadalupe and yesterday they were in Barangay Kalunasan.
“Kapin sa 500 ka iro ang among nakapon, na-ligate ug gibakunahan og anti-rabies vaccines didto sa Guadalupe,” Utlang said, adding that today until Friday, her personnel will be going to the various sitios of Punta Princesa.
There were seven dogs that have been found positive of rabies in different barangays of the city last year, although only one person died of rabies in Cebu City during the whole year period.
The DVMF personnel, particularly those assigned to the dog pound team, had stopped catching stray dogs unless they receive requests from the barangay officials.
Utlang said she had received a request from the officials of Barangay Tabunan to catch the stray dogs in Sitio Cantipla because they are afraid that these stray dogs will cause harm to the residents.
Starting late last year, Utlang had already stopped subjecting the apprehended stray dogs to their improvised gas chamber and she had already destroyed the equipment to support the campaign of the Humane Society International, a group of animal lovers.
Utlang admitted that the use of the so-called “gas chamber” is a cruel way of killing the domesticated animals, even if it has been approved by the country’s Animal Welfare Committee.
The new procedure in catching stray dogs is to use nets then inject them with two milligrams of pentobarbital, a kind of anesthesia, that will kill them while asleep. (FREEMAN NEWS)