Dogs - The case for "neuter & release"

[DawnHRD]

I've been meaning to post this ever since I read Wanderlust's post on neutering on the "Beware!!!" thread. Thanks, WL! However, I've only got round to it now, having been somewhat busy.

On various threads I've advocated a "Neuter & release" programme, rather than culling or removal of soi dogs, to control the dog population in Hua Hin, but I thought I'd try & consolidate information & provide supporting links & quotes in one thread.

So, many studies have been done by various organisations in various countries with a large stray problem (like India). WHO is one of these organisations & the overwhelming opinion is that neutering is the only permanent & effective method of population control. By this, I mean neutering of males & females, although some organisations mainly concentrate on females.

WHO, Geneva states "In the long term, control of reproduction is by far the most effective strategy of dog population management"

Neutering has many benefits both for dogs & the humans that live near them. For dogs it can prevent many diseases, such as VG (potentially fatal & contagious genital tumour), pyometra, testicular & ovarian or womb cancers. It reduces aggression, so they don't fight as much, and it reduces wanderlust (fewer road accidents for males trying to find that female in heat). For humans, reduced aggression has got to be a good thing, & less barking, fewer road accidents & a reduction in population are all things that dog lovers & dog haters would agree are positive things.

Why not just kill them?

For this to be successful, you have to kill every single female. (What do we do about owned dogs? Kill them too?) You cannot let one escape. The Doris Day League in the USA states "Killing can never succeed unless every single female is eliminated". One of the websites I will provide a link to suggests that a female can be responsible for the production of 67,000 offspring in 6 years. I'm not sure how they estimated these figures, our estimated figures are less. They are counting on litters of 8 pups, possibly all female. We based our estimate on 6 pups per litter, half female. Either way, the pyramid does extend to many thousands of dogs from one bitch.

WHO, Geneva 1990 - "Removal & killing of dogs should never be considered as the most effective way of dealing with a problem of surplus dogs in the community: it has no effect whatsoever on the root cause of the problem"

OK, why can't they all be moved to a pound?

Where? Where are you going to put that many dogs? HHDRC estimate there are 100,000 strays or partially owned dogs in the area. You move some out, you leave a vacuum which will soon be filled by more dogs. There will be more territorial fights, more noise, more aggressiveness while a territory (which was established) becomes re-established with different dogs.

So why "neuter & release"?

Neutering solves many of the problems. The idea is to pick up the dogs from an area, bring them in to be neutered, vaccinated, parasites removed & then put them back a week later after stitches have been removed. Established territories are still maintained by existing dogs. New dogs won't move in. Less fights when bitches come onto heat (or don't! ). Healthier dogs. Less problems all round. Of course, problems won't disappear, the overall problem is too big for that. It will take a few years before a significant difference is seen.

HHDRC & Dogchance are currently working on an initiative to start a neuter & release programme in HH. We aim to neuter & vaccinate a minimum of 40 street dogs a month. Hopefully we'll start by the end of this year. We will also start an education campaign about the benefits of neutering.

I'd just like to make one more point:
If you are a dog owner, please neuter your own dog (male or female) You cannot complain about the soi dogs if your pet is not neutered. If your dog is a female & has pups, what do you do with them? Find homes for them? What happens if the people who take them get fed up & dump them? Or allow them to roam, breeding more pups? If your dog is a male, you don't get the problem, but everyone else does... and both sexes can get VG, believe me a lot of soi dogs have it and can pass it on to your dog through mating or even by your dog sniffing them in their affected areas.
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem, in this case. If you own a male & a female, get them both done. I can't believe how many times I've heard "But they're brother & sister/mother & son! They won't have pups!" Newsflash - dogs don't have our concept of incest. They will & do mate with family!

Finally 2 links to websites of dog organisations in countries with significant dog problems (India & Romania).

http://www.wsdindia.org/FAQs/faqs.htm

Pay particular attention to questions 3 & 4

http://www.fpcc.ro/index.php?lang=en&pa ... mepg=howto

Any feedback or comments would be welcomed

[jackie]

Dawn how much does it cost to neuter a dog?

[DawnHRD]

Dawn how much does it cost to neuter a dog?

Depends on sex & size. Females are more expensive than males (more complicated). We get it at discounted rates, but at normal prices, a 15kg (medium sized) dog would be approx 800 bt for a male, 1,000 bt for a female. Smaller dogs are slightly less, larger slightly more. Still miles cheaper than Western countries!

[Glyn]

Dawn, I think it is a wonderful job you are trying to do, but the overall cost will be great, how do you expect to fund such a task? I heard a few years ago that they used to do a 'free' neutering day for dogs in Cha-Am this was for local people to take their dogs to. I haven't heard of it lately though.

[jackie]

1000baht is peanuts to neuter a dog. I paid 150 pounds for each of my dogs to be neutered here in the UK.

I will be more than happy to pick up a dog in my soi and take it to the vet to be neutered when I come in April. If every Farang dog lover done the same then the dog population could eventually be controlled

[DawnHRD]

Dawn, I think it is a wonderful job you are trying to do, but the overall cost will be great, how do you expect to fund such a task? I heard a few years ago that they used to do a 'free' neutering day for dogs in Cha-Am this was for local people to take their dogs to. I haven't heard of it lately though.

The free neutering was the tessadban & as far as I know, they still do this periodically. Yes, the cost will be great, cheaper than if we took each individual dog to the vet, as we do now, but still huge. Dogchance will provide the facility & medical/surgical materials & HHDRC & some doggy individuals will supply the dogs and the manpower & oversee the day to day running. We are currently asking two local vets to donate a day of their time each month, either for free or at a discounted rate. We're awaiting the outcome of that.

We also plan to ask vets & vet students from abroad to come & help. There is currently some interest from HK, I have been told.

How will we fund it? Through donations & sponsorship, I hope. If we make enough of a difference, maybe businesses & even the local authority might be persuaded to help out. Who knows? Soi Dog Rescue & Dogchance currently operate schemes like this in Bangkok & Dogchance does it in Ratchaburi, also.

Also, if people can do as Jackie suggested and neuter, out of their own pocket, just one soi dog from their area, it will help tremendously. The vet we currently use, also has an ear tattoo to identify street dogs that have been neutered by him, so we don't waste time & money doing the same ones over again. We will also employ identification methods such as these.

As for free neutering, if we receive the funds we need, we will provide this also, for those on limited incomes. We already do (when we have money) fund medical treatment for dogs whose owners cannot afford to have them treated.

[Vital Spark]

Super idea. One small problem. Most Thais will not even consider having their dogs neutered/spayed (especially the males).

The dogs in our village haven't been neutered, and the two females who live as squatters in our garden are untouchable, so we have the problem of pups every six months. I feed the females and, sometimes, can get round the problem by putting Dexamethasone in their food. It has worked a few times. The times that it hasn't worked has resulted in us trying to re-home pups. We can speak a reasonable amount of Thai and are quite prepared to pay for the re-homed pups to be neutered or spayed. You'd think we were suggesting some kind of torture, the look of horror and disgust that we even suggest such a thing. The Thais that we've spoken to just don't accept it.

I'd be willing to spend my month's salary getting all the dogs in the village done. I'd even pay the owners - but I know they still wouldn't go for it. Grrrr...

If you can sort out the strays, I'll keep working on the local owners.

What we need is a Royal Decree.

[DawnHRD]

That's where the education comes in. Dogchance is a Thai organisation, run by a Thai lady & they already have all the literature & the little free giveaways like stickers & keyrings. She actually gets a fairly good response to her neuterings (but I agree, we've come up against the same problem as you, in many cases). We'll just have to give it a go.

I'm not suggesting for one moment we can do it all. What we're likely to achieve is just decreasing the poulation a little. But that's far better than what's being done at the moment. Someone has to do something...

[lambella]

So how can none dog owners donate funds to the cause?

[DawnHRD]

So how can none dog owners donate funds to the cause?

Directly to us or to Dogchance. Whilst we are always in need of funds, if anyone wanted to donate to this cause specifically, I would recommend waiting until we are nearer starting the programme. By then we should have a separate account set up for the neuter programme, we don't yet. If anyone just wanted to make a general donation to HHDRC, then they can pm me for details.

[vincent chang]

They say people select dogs which are an extension of their own personalities. Often times you see the dog and the owner looks just like the dog. I see many adds from guys who want to hook their dog up with another dog to breed. I think that tells you something about the dog owner. I have a siberian husky , female, who has a mind of her own. I had her spayed because she already had 3 puppies already. I have been feeding one stray thai dog that hangs around the house. she has already had litter after litter of puppies. After a few weeks , the puppies disapeared. who knows where. Lots of people like to breed dogs out here when the solution should be to spay and neuter, and encourage people to adopt the stray dogs already out there at your shelter, if they want a dog, and have them spayed or neutered as a condition for adoption.

[DawnHRD]

Just a quick update on the state of the Dogchance/HHDRC neuter clinic. Anyone who has been on the road near the Elephant Village in the last week or so, might have seen that building seems to be steaming along now. Thank goodness! We look to being able to have our grand opening (& first neuterings) in August.

We will have a Thai vet who will come down twice a month to neuter about 20 dogs each time. That will be our basic premise. However, we have had enquiries from overseas vets who want to come & volunteer their time to neuter. So, when they are here, we will be able to neuter far more (maybe up to twice as many). Dogs will be vaccinated (at least against rabies, but if money permits, against parvo, distemper etc too), have parasites removed, kept for recuperation & stitch removal & released back into their territories. They will also be permanently marked to identify which have been neutered by us.

Any sick dogs will be taken to HHDRC to recover, then, hopefully, released back once healthy. We hope that this joint effort will at least begin to chip away at the mountainous stray dog problem & hope that the community (local & farang) support the programme, by reporting or bringing in dogs from their sois who need neutering, perhaps donating their time or money to help, and neutering their own (owned) dogs to help keep the population down.

[VincentD]

I've always advocated spaying the female. Fortunately I have a vet at the end of my soi so it's a short 400 meter trek. The vet does, however, recommend that the female should be allowed to pass her first season before the process. She's put on a lot of weight since then, though.

I've not had any negative feedback from my village; there was one female stray (well, not quite, but she just could not stay in a compound) hanging around outside that everybody used to feed as she was quite good-natured. I took matters into my own hands after two litters, and some of the neighbours were appreciative of the effort.

Funny thing though. Even after they're spayed, come the season and there's no shortage of males tinkling on the gatepost...

[DawnHRD]

The vet does, however, recommend that the female should be allowed to pass her first season before the process.

That's a very old-school way of thinking. These days, most vets will neuter a lot earlier. In Mexico, I believe, they neuter 6 or 8 week old pups . There's no way I agree with doing it that young!

We tend to neuter ours at about 6 months. My rule of thumb is when their puppy teeth have gone & their adult teeth are all in, it's about right. Of course, for owned dogs, it doesn't matter so much when it's done (as long as they are not allowed to mate when in season). In our case, though, we have to do it quite early, so as not to risk unwanted pups. We also do both males & females.

Unfortunately, it can lead to weight gain, as you've noticed, Vincent, particularly in females. Out of 140 dogs (perhaps 80 or 90 females) we have 3 or 4 who have gained significant weight since being spayed.

[mildmike]

Just a practical suggestion - can you get your vets to do dissolving (intradermal) sutures?

It means you can release them earlier so need less holding space.