November 1, 2011

Street Dogs in the Philippines

Humane Society International

In 2008, HSI sponsored our first animal welfare workshop in Manila for local private veterinarians and those connected with the government animal control and hospitals. Seventy attendees from across the country learned about humane capture and handling of animals, shelter management, correct methods for euthanasia, spay/neuter procedures, and administration of rabies vaccinations.

HSI has since provided additional training workshops in the Philippines in 2009 and 2010 to maintain the momentum of learning more humane and effective means of animal control in the country.

A shining star for animals

Dr. Alice Utlang, a veterinarian with the Cebu city government who attended the workshop, took a particularly keen interest in implementing her new knowledge on the ground where she worked. In the years since, she has been able to advance her goals slowly and steadily.

The first change she made was to improve the method of capture to use of butterfly nets instead of iron nooses. She then went to work on shelter management, moving away from small, overcrowded cages which sometimes injured dogs to a policy of one dog per kennel. Next, she helped arrange for veterinary training on best practices for spay/neuter techniques in order to implement CNVR (catch, neuter, vaccinate, release) methods to try to control street dog overpopulation, She has also started up a mobile veterinary clinic, led or organized training workshops in various cities, and taken part in the annual Spay Day activities of HSI/The HSUS. She has been invited to speak at several events and been given an award for the Animal Birth Control Center she created.

But her greatest achievement has been to change her city’s method of euthanasia from tombachas (gas chambers) to the more humane and internationally accepted method of injection of sodium pentobarbital. Dr. Utlang, along with the support of Mayor Rama of Cebu City, has created a path for the rest of the country to follow.

Further collaboration

Thanks in large part to the dedication of Dr. Utlang, Cebu city can serve as a model for good humane animal population control and management. In recognition of this, and to help further our efforts there, in November 2010, HSI and Cebu City announced a partnership over two years with funding for two veterinarians, medicine and other supplies, and equipment for spay/neuter surgeries to help take control of Cebu’s street dog population. These veterinarians will also spend time training colleagues from different parts of the country to help spread their new skills and knowledge of humane animal control throughout the Philippines. This “train the trainers” program allows for sustainability of any program within a country, by enhancing the skill set and capacity of the local professionals.

In addition to our initiative with Cebu city, we are also working on a partnership with Southwestern University, a private veterinary college on Cebu, where we hope to offer consistent veterinary training, specifically in spay/neuter, for veterinarians as well as vet students throughout the country.

Setting a positive example

Despite limited resources, many of the veterinarians and government officials we have had the pleasure of working with in the Philippines are dedicated to increasing the standards of animal welfare in their provinces. They serve as a wonderful example for other countries to follow in terms of adoption and successful implementation of improved humane animal capture and population control methods.

In addition to our initiative with Cebu city, HSI developed a partnership with Southwestern University to act as the veterinary venue for training of veterinarians both within and outside of Cebu. By the end of 2011, HSI will have held three separate vet trainings, reaching more than 50 vets, with a focus on enhancement of spay/neuter, humane handling, and humane euthanasia techniques, which these vets will then apply in their various communities throughout the country.