For almost three years the dogs in Kandy could safely walk on the streets in Kandy. Even if they were being caught, they were sterilized and vaccinated, but they were not being killed as it was the earlier practice in Kandy just like everywhere else in our Buddhist country`85 quite contrary to the teachings of the Buddha. Today since early morning however in Kandy too the "dog-van" is seen on the road again to seize and kill every dog, which is not running fast enough`85 inspite of a court-order, which decided, that the humane dog-population-control-programme should continue and should not be obstructed in any way by the KMC.

With the cooperation of the KMC in October 2002 the KMC-dog-pound in Gohagoda was transformed into a transit-home for dogs passing through the population-control-programme.

The dogs were caught as before by the KMC-dog-catchers, but then in Gohagoda they were handed over into the caring hands of animal-welfare-activists, who were in those days sponsored by ATS Switzerland and later founded their own animal-welfare-organisation in order to be able to raise funds to continue the project. This organisation is being named SOFA, meaning SAVE OUR FRIENDS ASSOCIATION.

Dog has been regarded as man’s best friend from the time he was discovered by man, when he was still depending on hunting for survival and found the dog to be very helpful in that task. Nowadays in Western countries dogs, besides cats and other pets, have been discovered as great healers not only for psychological ailments, but even from physical diseases, those, who have pets, recover faster. Whoever can perceive and appreciate the wonderful qualities of our four-legged friends, cannot understand how anyone can harm or kill these dignified animals. In fact since many years voices raised the issue of killing dogs under the pretext of rabies-prevention in Sri Lanka, but for a long time these voices were ignored, only recently they are being taken seriously by the Minster for Health and steps are being taken to implement humane methods of population-control and rabies-prevention. It’s rather absurd, that now, at a time, when the Central Government is moving forward to work out a humane programme, the KMC has decided to step back and revert to killing. Only by a courts-order SOFA was able to prevent this up to now. But the KMC is now for the second time violating this court-order. The first violation took place some weeks back: one night dogs were killed with poisoned meat on the spot and some were taken and killed somewhere else. SOFA made an entry immediately and a warning-letter was written to make the Mayor, the Commissioner and the Veterinary Surgeon aware, that they commit contempt of court. Few weeks later, just before the Perahera started, a loudspeaker-vehicle announced, that the dog-owners should keep their dogs inside their compounds because all dogs found on the road would be killed on the spot. But then fortunately nothing happened during the Perahera, therefore the dog-owners must have relaxed their caution and many of them have lost their dogs today when their dogs took a stroll on the road. Many more will lose their dogs this night because the killing-team announced, that they will "work" the whole night through, knowing very well, that many dogs are tied during the day, but released at night. Why such intense effort and hurry all of a sudden? It is very obvious: Before this terror started, SOFA knew about these plans and informed the Chiefminister Srath Ekanayake, who gave a call to the Veterinary Surgeon of the Council and asked him not to kill the dogs since he was holding an investigation on this matter, which is pending. Today morning after he had heard, that his order was disobeyed, he called again, this time supported by the Minister for Upcountry Development Dimo Jayaratne. Once again the higher authorities were treated as non-existing by the Council. The Veterinary Surgeon of course knows, that sooner or later he will be stopped`85 so before that he wants to destroy as much as possible`85 not only as many innocent lives as possible, but probably he hopes to break the spirit of the SOFA volunteers and staff-members, who have spend all their time and energy on this project and now see the dogs, which they held in their arms when they took them to the operation-table for neutering, being caught and killed in the most cruel some manner.

Why the KMC changed its policy is hard to understand, one can see no logical reason to revert to killing dogs in Kandy when the humane programme has already shown positive results and there has been not even one case of human rabies in Kandy since years; while rabies occurs in almost all other districts of Sri Lanka.. It is beyond doubt, that an intense sterilization-effort can curb the dog-population much more effectively than random killing, and regular vaccinations will reduce the danger of rabies and eventually eradicate rabies from the island. Since the Government has not yet been able to fund free sterilizations and full coverage of vaccination, SOFA has been raising funds from international animal-welfare-organizations and private donors to sponsor the sterilizations and vaccinations in Gohagoda, as well as the free sterilizations available at the Peradeniya University. Besides many field-clinics were held in Kandy and surrounding during the past two and half years. All together more than 5000 animals have been neutered and immunized against rabies in all these programmes, most of them were female dogs, but also males, as well as cats.

Declaring killing to be necessary in order to prevent rabies from spreading is obvious untruth because no cases of human rabies have occurred in Kandy since years and even amongst the 1600 dogs, which were handled in Gohagoda since the no-kill-programme is on, not even one rabid dog was found.

If one analyses the dog-bite-cases treated in the hospitals, one finds that 80% were inflicted by owned dogs, usually unintentional bites, which occurred while children and dogs were playing together. Rarely do street-dogs bite, they rather try to make friends with people because they depend on them for food.

The high cost of post-exposure-vaccinations is also being used as an argument for killing. Actually those high costs have been reduced by more than 50% in Kandy during the last one and half years through the intense vaccination and sterilization programmes conducted by animal-welfare-organizations, while the KMC-Veterinary-Dept. becomes duty-conscious only with regard to destroying dogs, while the duty to vaccinate dogs is totally ignored. A false information, stating, that dog-bites have increased by 300% has been broadcasted by the KMC-Veterinary Surgeon, and with that he convinced the council-members to back up his illegal killing-spree.

However it is true, that outside of Kandy, humans still do fall prey to rabies in Sri Lanka (though the numbers decrease every year), but even in those areas a neutering- and vaccination-programme would effectively solve the problem. In fact it has been shown in a pilot-project using birth-control-injections and anti-rabies-vaccination that in Puttalam, which was earlier having a high occurrence of rabies, the disease has been controlled.

Another objection against the humane approach, which one hears frequently, is, that it is very costly and time-consuming. However in the long run the state will save on the cost of post-exposure-vaccination substantially if a well managed neutering and vaccination programme is being carried out. As long as there is no control of the dog-population, rabies can also not be controlled. And if rabies-vaccinations and sterilizations have to be paid for, most people will not be able to afford or will not regard it important enough to spend on it.

Since even these two basic requirements of responsible pet-ownership cannot be taken for granted, inflicting an additional burden on dog-owners by charging an annual registration-fee, as Mrs.Siva Obeysekara suggests in her draft for a new anti-rabies-ordinance, will only lead to more stray-dogs because people will simply disown their dogs if they are being charged for them`85 understandably in a way because most of the dogs have not been acquired intentionally, but have been adopted as they were homeless and hungrily hanging around their houses. Many kind people have even accepted several dogs in that way, some are extraordinary compassionate and always accept strays or pick up puppies from the road and the result is, that neighbours are dumping unwanted pets at their gardens und soon they find 10 to 20 dogs in their household, and some are so dedicated to the well-being of our four-legged fellow-beings, that that they take care of 30, 40, 50 of them and even more. Does Mrs.Sivaobeysekera want to punish such people for the service they have done for society by taking these animals from the road, by charging a fee from them for each of these rescued animals? SOFA strongly recommends to the Ministry of Health, not to accept this draft because it is not conducive to the purpose of curbing the stray-population and therefore the spread of rabies.