6 ms·

That was an amazing achievement, treating something like 10,000 dogs a year for 15 years! Now that the initiative has ended I hope that some form it continues s

That was an amazing achievement, treating something like 10,000 dogs a year for 15 years! Now that the initiative has ended I hope that some form it continues since maintaining a sterilized and vaccinated population will be a lot easier and less expensive than waiting until things get out of hand again. Outsiders wandering in and escaped pets turned strays have the potential to undo much of their great work.

wirrbel 3y ago
I mean as long as they don't start again too late it should be fine, right? For now, if they catch a dog the chances are high its already treated. So the return of reward is comparably low. Once the unvaccinated/unsterilized population has grown again, it makes sense again to get active. The point would be to not restart again too late.
- ars 3y ago
  > For now, if they catch a dog the chances are high its already treated. Wouldn't there be basically no dogs left in a couple year? So just keep the program going for another 5 years or so and they wouldn't be catching very many dogs in the first place.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    > Wouldn't there be basically no dogs left in a couple year? You may be amazed how many people don't see pets as responsibilities and either discard them for trivial reasons (like moving house) or let them breed and then dump the litter out to fend for themselves.
    - petesergeant 3y ago
      Yeah, joking aside I think pet registry has to be the other side of this + enforcement with DNA tests. If you have puppies, and they end up as strays, there should be sanctions.
      - samus 3y ago
        Depends how affordable DNA tests are. For a developing country, sterilization and vaccination might be cheaper than tracking every stray dog to their or their parent's owner. Policy can also make this infeasible if, for example, dog registration is too expensive in the first place for owners.
        progbits 3y ago
        It might be surprisingly cheap. Prague was doing DNA matching on dog poop in the streets to fine owners for not cleaning up. I think there were some problems from people breaking the poop bins and scattering the contents everywhere to reduce trust in the system ("it's not my fault, I cleaned up, someone took it out of the bin") but that wouldn't be a problem for strays right?
        samus 3y ago
        The Czech Republic is not a developing country though, but the wealthiest of the former Eastern Block countries. The cost might be easily covered by the fines, but I'm not so sure whether enough money can be extracted from perpetrators in less affluent countries.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Wouldn't there be basically no dogs left in a couple year? No. Plenty of people still won't sterilize their pets and abandon their litter in the street or some just run away or are lost or abandoned by their owners, therefore the stray dog population will never be absolute zero.
shiroiuma 3y ago
I don't get it. Why not just euthanize them? Surely that would be cheaper than sterilizing and vaccinating them all, and the benefits would be seen sooner.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
  Bhutan is deeply buddhist
  - martopix 3y ago
    Hopefully you don't have to be a Buddhist for that. Also I don't really see the advantage compared to sterilization.
    - wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
      Even though in certain Buddhist countries animals get slaughtered for food, taking lives of animals is a big thing in Buddhism. There is fundamentally no difference between animal consciousness and human in the buddhist view. But to take it to a human level: you dont see a difference in (chemical) castration of people with mental disability and killing them?
      - zmgsabst 3y ago
        Why is forcibly sterilizing animals better than forcibly sterilizing humans, in such a view? Or in their own framework, did Bhutan just engage in genocide against an unwanted demographic?
        dncornholio 3y ago
        If we believe that animals were created by someone for men, it would follow that men were also created for animals since some animals do eat human flesh.
        3y ago

wirrbel 3y ago

I mean as long as they don't start again too late it should be fine, right? For now, if they catch a dog the chances are high its already treated. So the return of reward is comparably low. Once the unvaccinated/unsterilized population has grown again, it makes sense again to get active. The point would be to not restart again too late.

ars 3y ago
> For now, if they catch a dog the chances are high its already treated. Wouldn't there be basically no dogs left in a couple year? So just keep the program going for another 5 years or so and they wouldn't be catching very many dogs in the first place.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  > Wouldn't there be basically no dogs left in a couple year? You may be amazed how many people don't see pets as responsibilities and either discard them for trivial reasons (like moving house) or let them breed and then dump the litter out to fend for themselves.
  - petesergeant 3y ago
    Yeah, joking aside I think pet registry has to be the other side of this + enforcement with DNA tests. If you have puppies, and they end up as strays, there should be sanctions.
    - samus 3y ago
      Depends how affordable DNA tests are. For a developing country, sterilization and vaccination might be cheaper than tracking every stray dog to their or their parent's owner. Policy can also make this infeasible if, for example, dog registration is too expensive in the first place for owners.
      - progbits 3y ago
        It might be surprisingly cheap. Prague was doing DNA matching on dog poop in the streets to fine owners for not cleaning up. I think there were some problems from people breaking the poop bins and scattering the contents everywhere to reduce trust in the system ("it's not my fault, I cleaned up, someone took it out of the bin") but that wouldn't be a problem for strays right?
        samus 3y ago
        The Czech Republic is not a developing country though, but the wealthiest of the former Eastern Block countries. The cost might be easily covered by the fines, but I'm not so sure whether enough money can be extracted from perpetrators in less affluent countries.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Wouldn't there be basically no dogs left in a couple year? No. Plenty of people still won't sterilize their pets and abandon their litter in the street or some just run away or are lost or abandoned by their owners, therefore the stray dog population will never be absolute zero.

shiroiuma 3y ago

I don't get it. Why not just euthanize them? Surely that would be cheaper than sterilizing and vaccinating them all, and the benefits would be seen sooner.

wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
Bhutan is deeply buddhist
- martopix 3y ago
  Hopefully you don't have to be a Buddhist for that. Also I don't really see the advantage compared to sterilization.
  - wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
    Even though in certain Buddhist countries animals get slaughtered for food, taking lives of animals is a big thing in Buddhism. There is fundamentally no difference between animal consciousness and human in the buddhist view. But to take it to a human level: you dont see a difference in (chemical) castration of people with mental disability and killing them?
    - zmgsabst 3y ago
      Why is forcibly sterilizing animals better than forcibly sterilizing humans, in such a view? Or in their own framework, did Bhutan just engage in genocide against an unwanted demographic?
      - dncornholio 3y ago
        If we believe that animals were created by someone for men, it would follow that men were also created for animals since some animals do eat human flesh.
        3y ago