Conference on Prevention of Rabies & Stray Dog Management

Chandigarh, 28^th September, 2019:- Sh. V.P. Singh Badnore, Governor of Punjab and Administrator, UT, Chandigarh inaugurated a one day National Conference on Prevention of Rabies and Stray Dog Management at Hotel Mountview, sector 10, here today.

Organized by the Municipal Corporation Chandigarh with a objective to evolve means to manage stray dog population and safeguard the public from the disease within the framework of humane approach.

While addressing the delegates, the Administrator said that people often reason that street dogs are meant to live outdoors because they aren’t capable of being domesticated and living with a family. But the dogs are native, adaptable and one of the healthiest friend of human. In a much broader sense, stray dogs are well socialized, not only other dogs but also humans. They love human companionship and just like any other dog with sufficient exercise and walks they have proved to be excellent pets and perfectly suitable for apartment living.

He said that a stray dog’s life on the streets is filled with abuse, hunger and usually cut short abruptly by human hand. By giving a home to one such dog, you are giving them the gift of life. He asked the MC Commissioner to chalk out plan of adoption of street dogs and incentivize the citizens who come forward to adopt street dogs.

He said that the public participation is must in understanding the issues, recognizing the areas requiring improvement and evolving strategies for future. He said that for better management of human dog interaction, these type of conferences should be organized in other parts of country. He said that we expect a lot many new ideas coming out of this conference for much better management of stray dogs and rabies control.

The Administrator further said that this interaction during the conference will certainly going to give a boost to reduce man and dog conflict through presentations in the conference by these experts and later implementation at not only city beautiful Chandigarh but at National level. This will give long time solutions in curtailing rabies incidents in dogs and thereby safeguarding the human population from the deadly disease, he added.

While welcoming the Chief Guest and resource persons from different states & UTs, Sh. K.K. Yadav, IAS, Commissioner, Municipal Corporation, Chandigarh said that this was a first of its kind National Conference on this sensitive public concern. He said that this conference was planned of National importance and the measures suggested by the resource persons and experts from different fields will surely resolve the scare of dog management and rabies. He said that suitable measures emerged out of the conference will be implemented in its true spirit to make the city residents more comfortable and simultaneously taking care of the dogs in a compassionate manner which is known to be man’s best friend since ages.

The resource persons gave concluding remarks of the conference as under:

1.       Guidelines should be issued for the both dog lovers and known dog lovers like being more tolerant towards dog, being responsible owner etc.

2.       People who are scared of dogs should be made aware of things not to do in front of a dog like not running away or not challenging a dog or avoiding eye contact with him.

3.       MCC should make a team who is trained for OH Operations.

4.       MCC should make a Nodal agency for dog adoption and keeping a check on proper registration and vaccination of the dogs.

5.        All pet dogs should be sterilised and vaccinated every year.

6.       Hospital should make records of all the deaths occurred due to Rabies.

7.       MCC should make pet division for all the records.

8.       The animal husbandry should create an implementation team for making Census of all bitches and dogs should be done village wise and locality wise.

9.       People should be made aware that a person is not infected until the virus reaches the mind so immediate actions like rushing to the hospital and getting the injections on day zero can be taken to avoid the case of rabies.

10.   Also we can aware the pet owners to get their dogs trained so that they don’t bite people or bother the people around them.

The resource persons were from Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Ludhiana, Izatnagar and Delhi. Near about 200 delegates/participants comprising of local representatives of Resident Welfare Association, Beopar Mandal representatives, local NGOs as well from other state/UTs, Medical and veterinary fraternity from states and UTs have been participated in this full day conference.

Sh. Manoj Kumar Parida, IAS, Adviser to the Administrator, Sh. Rajesh Kumar, Mayor, Dr. O.P. Chaudhary, Chairman Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), Sh. Mandeep Singh Brar, Deputy Commissioner, Chandigarh, Sh. Sh. Sanjay Kumar Jha, IAS, Special Commissioner, Maj. Gen. Dr. RM Kharb, AVSM (Retd.), former chairman AWBI, Tilak Raj & Sh. S.K. Jain, Additional Commissioners, Sh. Tejdeep Singh Saini, Director, Animal Husbandry, UT, Chandigarh, Sh. Manoj Bansal, Chief Engineer, councilors of MCC and other concerned officers of UT Administration and MCC were present during the Conference.

Sh. Satish Kumar Jain, Additional Commissioner said that the Municipal Corporation Chandigarh has been making the awareness programs regarding the care of street dogs as well as preventive measures to be used for avoiding dog bites. The MCC also holds anti-rabies vaccination camps throughout the year for stray dogs in the whole city. The local NGOs dealing with animal care and having compassion for stray dogs are also helping the MCC in this endeavor. They are associated in promoting adoption of stray dogs for their better care. He said that the Corporation runs two dispensaries specifically for treating the dog bite patients and anti-rabies vaccination/serum is provided free of cost.