DOG OWNERS CAUTIONED TO REGISTER AND VACCINATE DOGS OR RISK HAVING THEM SHOT

Lusaka City Council (LCC) is appealing to dog owners to have them registered for vaccination and to enable the local authority know the dog’s population in the city.

LCC has also cautioned dog owners to confine their pets failure to which they will be regarded as stray dogs and RISK being shot.

Public relations manager Chanda Makanta said the development would assist in combating dog bite diseases and should be embraced by all dog owners.

Mrs Makanta disclosed that the LCC would soon embark on stray dog shooting exercise to curb the spread of diseases from unvaccinated dogs and to control their number in the city.

However, there have been concerns from the public in the inhuman manner in which the local authority has been shooting dogs in the city.

“Shooting these dogs is not done out of pleasure but its done in order to control the number of stray dogs on the streets and to curb the spread of diseases from unvaccinated dogs, We would like to do it in a better way ,so we have since acquired a drug with which to inject stray dogs brought to us voluntarily but it becomes difficult to inject a stray dog on the run, we have no option but to shoot and to kill as much as it may look inhuman,” she said.

Makanta bemoaned the increasing numbers of stray dogs in the city and she revealed that her institution had received a number of reports on dog bites.

She urged dog pets owners to have them registered and vaccinated to prevent them from becoming a nuisance.

Makanta stated once a dog was registered after proof of vaccination, the dog owner is then issued with a certificate and a badge for the dogs’s number.

She added that council only allows less that five dogs per household and was aware of others having more than ten dogs .

She stated that charges for registering a pet dog was KR60 and KR 75 for those having more than five dogs.

Makanta, however, said that the council had challenges in terms of logistics such as bullets and guns for the team to carry out the exercise.

Out of a total population only 200 dogs have so far been registered.
(ZedChronicle)