(LK) KANDY: PROPAGANDA AGAINST ABC

[Guest guest]

Again the Municipal Vet of Kandy, Dr.Jayasinge, is making propaganda against

ABC, this time he picked on a dogbite-case at the Kandy Hospital premises... we

tried to straighten out the facts and change the focus:

 

Dog bites in Kandy Hospital

 

Newspapers should not be battlefields, but report facts. Naturally there are

different viewpoints about facts and media has a responsibility to give space to

all the viewpoints. However these last two statements by Dr. Jayasinghe in the

" Island " regarding stray-dogs in Kandy are not just giving a viewpoint, but

distort facts, and since we are one of the NGOs, which were being blamed by him,

we have to answer.

 

No doubt, just like human beings can be aggressive and do harm, when they get

irritated or if they had much trauma in their upbringing, so do dogs, which have

been traumatized, sometimes become aggressive. Usually such dogs should be kept

confined by their owners if it is too late to correct their behaviour, but many

dog-owners are not much aware of their responsibility for their dogs. Every

dog-bite should be a reminder to all concerned, that we have to focus on

educating people, what are the responsibilities shouldered when one adopts an

animal. Instead of that Dr.Jayasinghe makes every dog-bite into an issue to

promote the random killing of dogs.

 

The dog at the Kandy hospital, which bit several people, is not one of the

community-dogs living in the hospital-premises, it has been seen coming down

from Hantana, most probably following his master, who had come to take medicine

from the hospital that morning. Since the dog could not be caught, nobody knows

whether it is a rabid dog, it's just a pre-caution, that anti-rabies-vaccines

are being given if an unknown dog has bitten.

 

Dr.Jayasinghe blames us for preventing him to carry out his duty according to

this outdated rabies-ordinance, a law from the British times, which has anyway

been done away with in Sri Lanka since President Rajapakse has given an order

last year before Vesak, not to kill dogs anymore, but to introduce humane

scientific methods of dog-population-control and rabies-prevention.

 

Long before the President took this decision, Dr.Jayasinghe himself had an

insight into the mathematics of dog-breeding and decided, that instead of

killing dogs, dogs should be sterilised and vaccinated because this will be more

efficient. In response to his appeal, we formed an NGO to raise funds and carry

out this task in cooperation with the KMC. However Dr.Jayasinghe withdrew his

cooperation after a year and persistently worked on the council-members and the

Mayor to withdraw their cooperation too. He stopped the catching of dogs under

the pretext, that we were returning the dogs to the same location, where his

team caught them. Fact is, that we return the dogs sterile and vaccinated and

since dogs protect their territories from intruders, other dogs cannot easily

enter the area. Neighbourhoods with sterilised and vaccinated community-dogs are

having a stabilised and healthy dog-population and usually also a friendly one

because biting dogs are either bitches with puppies or un-castrated males. Dr.

Jayasinghe himself had explained this in a newspaper-article in October 2002,

but in November 2004 he wanted to start killing dogs again. We had no other

option than to ask the court for an injunction to stop this move. Even after the

court ordered to continue with the birth-control-programme, Dr.Jayasinghe tried

to by-pass the order by fooling the council-members with a totally irrelevant

document into believing, that rabies was on the rise in Kandy and succeeded in

getting a resolution passed, which declared Kandy a rabies-endangered area.

After the resolution was passed, he killed 360 dogs in 5 days, mostly sterilised

vaccinated dogs wearing collars, community-dogs and many owned dogs too. Again

we had to file a case to stop the mass-killing. Ever since he is blaming us for

every dog-bite, but did he take the responsibility when he was still killing

3000 dogs per year and the number of dog-bites were double as high as they are

now, when people still died of rabies in Kandy, which has not happened even once

after the birth-control-programme commenced?

 

Instead of blaming each other, it is high time for all of us to work together.

Many dog-bites could be prevented if children were educated, not to tease dogs,

not to touch them if they are not sure about them, not to disturb them while

they are eating etc, and if dog-owners were educated how to keep their pets

friendly. A dog, which is chained or caged all day long without being allowed to

exercise, without getting attention and affection and without sufficient food,

is very likely to become irritable. Domestic dogs have a natural instinct to

protect their owners' property, so it is our duty to train the dog, not to

attack anyone, who comes near the house. Certain big breeds have a lot of

requirements, for which their owners should be very well prepared, otherwise

these dogs become uncontrollable. Easiest to handle are the local dogs and out

of them the most grateful and docile are the street-dogs. If we treat them

friendly and skilfully, we don't have to fear them.

 

We appeal to the public of Kandy: Please make use of our free

sterilization-clinics for cats and dogs, contact us to find out details

(077-7426229, 060-2801736), please contact us if there are strays in your

neighbourhood, which still have to be sterilised. Please don't frighten these

unfortunate dogs, which were dumped by their owners on the street when they were

small. If they are too scared, catching them will be difficult and then they

will continue to breed and pass on their fear to the next generation. We have

performed more than 9000 sterilizations in Kandy and surroundings, but we know

we have much more to do and with your support we can do it.

 

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