Community veterinary clinics for livestock guarding dogs

Cheetah Conservation Botswana recently conducted the first in a proposed series of Community Veterinary Clinics as part of its developing Livestock Guarding Dog Programme. During the last week of January 2009, the organization teamed up with Maun Animal Welfare Society (MAWS) to stage a veterinary clinic for owners of domestic dogs in the Ghanzi District. Visiting Grootlagtle, Qabo, Kuke, as well as Ghanzi itself (which all border wildlife management areas), the objective was to trial and assess the potential for providing such mobile veterinary clinics for owners of guarding and herding dogs, as well as to other domestic dogs living within dispersed rural communities. The strategy is to help to control canine diseases, which can not only be passed to the more valuable guard dogs, but potentially into species such as the vulnerable African Wild Dog. You can read more about the clinic on the organization's web site.