Friday 10 January 2014

JMICAWE awarded Dogs Trust Canine Welfare Grant


The JMICAWE team here at the R(D)SVS received welcome news over the festive period  when they discovered that their application for a Dogs Trust Canine Welfare Research Grant had been successful.

The research proposal entitled ‘Developing and validating a robust canine welfare audit system for use in Trap Neuter Return (TNR) programmes,’ aims to develop an effective framework to evaluate the welfare of individual dogs through trap-neuter-return programmes.

Trap-neuter-return (TNR) of free-ranging domestic dogs is an important tool in preventing conservation problems such as infectious disease transfer to wildlife populations and hybridisation with endangered wild canidae. Additionally TNR is recommended by the OIE as a tool to combat problems relating to dog overpopulation such as zoonotic disease e.g. rabies, shelter overpopulation, and dog bite attacks on humans

Veterinarian Heather Bacon of the JMICAWE, who is leading the project said
“Whilst well-planned TNR programmes are a useful tool in addressing these issues, it is important to recognise that welfare of the individual dog may be compromised by a population management approach. This project seeks to develop a framework by which we can objectively assess the impact of TNR population management programmes on the welfare of the individual dogs experiencing TNR.”

The Dogs Trust is supported by our Head of School Prof David Argyle, who acts as a trustee, and collaborative projects with the Dogs Trust including both the Canine Welfare Grant research project and Veterinary training initiatives in Sarejevo, Bosnia, have been supported by Professor Natalie Waran, Director of the Centre, and Hayley Walters RVN of the JMICAWE.
 
 JMICAWE Veterinary welfare and outreach manager Heather Bacon training Chinese students in appropriate neutering, anaesthesia and analgesia techniques.


 
JMICAWE Animal welfare and Anaesthesia Veterinary nurse Hayley Walters (centre), training Bosnian vets as part of a collaborative Dogs Trust training programme
 

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