Kochi Corporation banking on six additional trained dog catchers to be allotted to improve the functioning of ABC unit

The Kochi Corporation remains hopeful of further improving the functioning of its Animal Birth Control (ABC) unit at Brahmapuram with the Worldwide Veterinary Service (WVS) assuring to make available the service of six well-trained dog catchers under its ‘Mission Rabies’ campaign by the middle of next month.

The Corporation will have to bear their expenses though. WVS has one of the country’s best facilities for producing trained and certified dog catchers in Goa and Ootty. At present, the ABC unit has five dog catchers who have been with the unit for long and also double up as animal handlers effectively impacting their dog catching service.

“We have been finding it very hard to find fresh recruits as dog catchers since it is basically a job that is looked down up on and demands immense physical exertion. We have been paying our existing catchers 21,000 as monthly salary plus other benefits like Provident Fund and ESI,” said a health official with the Corporation.

Meanwhile, the Corporation has also tied up with WVS for a month-long campaign under the ‘Mission Rabies’ campaign to vaccinate 10,000 strays in the city limits starting next month. WVS experts will associate the Corporation’s dog catchers for the campaign. Though WVS has been running projects in association with local bodies across the country, this is for the first time that the Corporation is associating with it.

The ABC unit is also banking on the imminent arrival of two more vehicles, which BPCL-Kochi Refinery has agreed to fund, thus increasing the vehicle fleet of the unit to three. The company has also agreed to sponsor a kennel facility for accommodating an additional 40 stray dogs. The ABC unit now has a kennel facility for 40 dogs.

The sterilisation of strays at the ABC unit has increased to between eight and 12 dogs a day over the last one-and-a-half month with the addition to two vet surgeons. Besides, there are two para vet staff. The focus is on sterilising female dogs since that alone helps to check the proliferation of dogs. While male dogs are released two days after the operation, it takes up to three days, and even five days in the event of any complications, before the female dogs are released.

Also, the Corporation has started awareness classes in schools and colleges on how to deal with stray dogs considering that students are among the most vulnerable sections.