ISLAMABAD:Chief Commissioner Islamabad Captain (Retd) Muhammad Usman Younus here on Saturday inaugurated first ever government-owned Stray Dogs Population Control Centre at sub-urban area of Tarlai here on Saturday.
The Centre housing over 500 dogs, will have a play area, rest area, surgical unit and a vaccination center with a laboratory, the Chief Commissioner said while speaking at the inaugural ceremony.
“An abrupt increase in stray dogs had become a constant nuisance for the residents, so an inclusive plan to reduce its population through Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return (TNVR) policy was introduced in the federal capital.”
He said by adopting this policy, the civil administration has ensured that animal rights were protected in Pakistan.
He expressed the desire that it was first kind of centre in which animals’ rights were kept intact which needed to be replicated across the country.
Younus urged the civil society to share their experiences to bring improvements and obtaining desired results at the Centre.
Meanwhile, Director Agriculture and Extension Services ICT Waqar Anwar told reporter that two vehicles each for rural and urban areas of the city have been arranged for the purpose. Each vehicle will have four trained personnel including a driver and three dog catchers.
The Stray Dog Population Control Centre, he said will also have a veterinary doctor and seven trained helpers to take care of the stray dogs.
In the past, he said the civil administration used to kill stray dogs but the Islamabad High Court stopped them from shooting and poisoning them with the direction to devise a policy to neutralize such dogs. As a first step, now the stray dogs would be caught by the teams and they will be transported to Stray Dog Population Control Centre instead of killing them on site, where they will be neutralized through vaccination, he told.
“The stray dogs will lose the ability to breed once vaccinated,” he informed, adding that the dogs would live their natural life and die their natural death.
Waqar said the Centre will help in prevention of unnecessary pain and sufferings of stray dogs while it will also help to reduce incidents of dog bites and rabies cases. The Centre will create awareness towards responsible dog ownership in the city, he added.
He said there were hundreds of complaints from citizens about stray dogs in their respective areas, which they filed through Pakistan Citizen Portal, but the same were left unattended as the court had barred the city managers from killing the dogs and on the other side they didn’t have an alternate arrangement.
According to municipal by-laws, residents are not allowed to keep dogs without the consent of their neighbors and valid license issued by the municipal administration. However, in violation of rules and regulations, hundreds of people keep dogs as pets without following proper procedure. At present, only few people hold valid licenses.
An MCI official said a license is only issued after getting statements of two neighbors and checking the dogs’ vaccinations.
According to a study, an estimated number of stray dogs in Pakistan are over 3 million.