Here’s big barks for the sterilization program and no rabies for 10 years but the article says that the rubber docking method doesn’t hurt the dogs. I find it hard to understand why it won’t hurt. If anyone knows anything else about this, please bark in.

Thanks to the Bhutan Observer for this article.

Mass sterilisation of stray dogs
12 April 2008
Pema Gatshel: Under a makeshift garden umbrella, a team of veterinary technicians sterilize a female dog, sedated with drugs for the operation.

A few minutes later the dog is removed to a safe place under the shade. A tight rubber nozzle is clasped to the tail to identify the dog has having been sterilized and vaccinated. The process, called rubber docking, will result in the painless shedding of the dog’s tail in a few weeks.

These technicians of the Dzongkhag Livestock sector in Pema Gatsel are in the middle of the mass sterilization and anti rabies vaccination of the canine population here. They have already sterilized and vaccinated about 900 dogs during the campaign which is being carried out simultaneously in all the gewogs by the respective livestock
centres.

With the full support of the Dzongkhag Administration and all the people concerned including respective local leaders and farmers, the Dzongkhag Livestock Officer Mr.B.N. Sharma is optimistic of sterilizing and vaccinating about 90% of the canine population of about 3,000 spread across 11 gewogs.

According to him, the programme was delayed by about a month this year as the sector initially planned to undertake the programme after having all the strays impounded in the dog pound.

“With the construction still incomplete, the sector decided to go ahead with the programme in the villages to enable better healing in the cooler weather,” said Mr. Sharma.

Outlining the importance of undertaking such a programme, Dzongda Goling Tshering told Observer that like any other place in the country, Pema Gatsel too faces the problem of an increasing dog population, both in urban as well as in rural areas.

“Because of the threat of rabies outbreak posed by the increasing dog population and frequent outbreaks in the neighboring dzongkhags,the program here is being undertaken as an important priority for the livestock sector,” he said.

The DLO, Mr. Sharma, said that it is because of the continued prioritizing of the sterilization programme that the livestock sector was able to contain the dog population from exploding. He also said that there has been no record of rabies outbreaks in the Dzongkhag for the last ten years.

With the impounding of all the strays within this month, it is expected that Pema Gatsel will finally be a stray dog free place. While this will bring much needed relief to those in urban areas, some farmers feel that the absence of dogs in the village might lead to an increase in the attack on crops by wild animals.

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