More progress in our localized treatment experiment
As I have mentioned in past posts, we are attempting to eradicate skin diseases and parasite problems in a very localized and small area. In this one village there is a group of stray dogs that are all part of one pack and they don't seem to wander or intermingle with other areas or packs. Therefore, we are trying to use and edible treatment for parasites such as fleas, ticks, worms, and all others with a broad spectrum medication and see if we are able to eliminate the problem entirely, but cutting off the "food source" for the various bugs. The hope is that in the absence of any hosts, that the parasite population can be diminished dramatically, and then hopefully retreatment will not be necessary.
We chose this location because we have been working there for a while. The dogs there know and trust us and we are able to approach almost all of them with relative ease. Also, since the treatment is just a dog treat it is very easy for us to administer the treatment since there is no need for us to even touch the animals in question.
The one major precaution is that we need to ensure that we do not accidentally double dose one of the animals. Therefore we have been very careful to document which animals have already been treated. We can't simply throw a bunch of the medicated dog treats on the ground and hope for the best. We have to make sure that each animal receives only 1. This has proven a little bit complicated because some of the dogs, despite being homeless are quite finicky about what kind of food they will eat.
Normally wrapping the treat in something super tasty like a piece of ham is a good tactic, but one of the poochies actually turned his nose up at this option. I don't know what sort of Kobe beef he is accustomed to but we eventually succeeded in getting him to swallow the pill as well.
We don't really have any good or scientific reasoning behind our hopes that this experiment will actually work and we would have treated them for these skin problems anyway, but this is the first time that we have attempted to take on an entire localized population in the hopes of achieving more than simply helping a few members of the pack. We believe we have identified and treated the entire group. We will be closely monitoring them to see their progress and hopefully we will have some good news in a couple months.
If you would like to see how you can help out, or simply spread the word, please visit our website at
http://krabianimalwelfare.org
เป็นผู้สนับสนุนรายเดือนหรือบริจาคครั้งเดียวได้ที่:
lots of happy faces there. I hope the experiment works!