Outreach Clinics Resume

By Kaytie Grant

Outreach Clinics Resume

You may have seen in our e-newsletter or on social media that we recently completed a three day spay, neuter and vaccination clinic on the islands of Guimaras and in Iloilo. 

This was the first outreach island clinic since before the pandemic. Up until now, we have not been able to travel to islands due to covid restrictions, so this was important for the IWCT team of vets, staff and volunteers. 

Spay, neuter and vaccinations

In Guimaras, we spayed, neutered and vaccinated 40 dogs and cats in a single day. Unfortunately, without external help from organisations like ours, it’s not long before the dog or cat population on the smaller islands gets out of control. Both dogs and cats can have large litters of young and with a gestation period of just nine weeks, it’s possible for a female dog or cat to conceive three times in one year. As well as adding to the number of animals on the street, failing to spay or neuter an animal can leave them more susceptible to cancers, like in Rocky’s case. You can read more about the importance of spay and neutering in this previous blog.    

In Iloilo, we performed 36 spay or neuter operations, as well as administering the rabies vaccine. We have said before how Rabies is still a real issue in the Philippines, causing hundreds of human and thousands of animal deaths per year. 

Eliminating Rabies

With regular vaccination programmes in targeted areas such as Iloilo and Guimaras, we are very likely to eradicate the disease in those places, bringing the Philippines closer to its target of being rabies free by 2030.  

IWCT gives out the Rabies vaccination for FREE. The cost to us is just 64p. £6.40 will provide 10 doses and £25 will almost cover just under 40 vaccinations.

Eliminating rabies in the Philippines also means dispelling the myths around domesticating dogs. With no rabies disease to worry about, so many more families will open up their homes to a pet dog. This ultimately means there will be fewer dogs suffering on the streets and more in loving homes.

We look forward to our next outreach clinic later in the summer. In the meantime, we continue to serve the dogs in and around our current Treatment Centre in Concepcion, Tarlac through our twice weekly spay, neuter and vaccination clinics. We couldn’t do either without our amazing team of vets, volunteers and generous supporters, such as yourself. 

If you’d like to support the work we do, you can make a donation here.

Thank you.  

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