On World Spay Day we want to highlight the amazing work our FOUR PAWS Stray Animal Care teams are doing to improve the lives of companion animals across Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe.  Through a practice known as CVNR, which stands for catch, neuter, vaccinate and return, stray dogs and cats are neutered and returned to their home communities, where they lead longer and healthier lives. Widely accepted as an effective population management tool, neutering also has far reaching health benefits including a reduction in certain cancers in dogs and cats, less roaming behaviors, and therefore fewer road traffic accidents. In Asia, spaying and neutering has the added benefit of reducing litters of unwanted kittens and puppies, many of which sadly end up in the brutal dog and cat meat trade.

But whilst today’s awareness day focuses on the surgical component of CVNR: neutering, or spaying as it is also called, vaccinations are also a critical element in our stray animal programs.  Vaccinations for diseases such as rabies, distemper, and parovirus are not only lifesaving for the animals themselves, but also help protect communities and promote public health. Vaccinated dogs are safer for people, and often more accepted by local communities. FOUR PAWS ensures that all dogs and cats are vaccinated before we return them to their homes.

The stats:

• Between 2008-2018 our teams worked across 112 municipalities in Eastern Europe
• We’ve been in Romania since 1995 and teams arrived in Bulgaria in 2002 and Ukraine in 2010
• 25 staff working across the fixed and mobile clinics in Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine
• In 2018, FOUR PAWS launched its Stray Animal Care Southeast Asia program, including programs in four countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam)
• In the last 15 years our teams have neutered over 100,000 dogs and cats across Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia

Whether in Romania or Cambodia the process is the same:

Watch the team at work in the Ukraine here: