The Institute at York for the first international conference on dog population management

From the 4^th to the 8^th of September 2012, the 1^st international conference on dog population management was held in York, UK. The event was organised by the Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA), the UK Ministry of Agriculture government agency, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and some of the major NGOs involved in the fight against stray dogs and in rabies control throughout the world (WSPA, RSPCA, HSI, IFAW).

Experts from all continents participated in the conference by presenting their on field experiences and proposing effective strategies aiming to limit the number of stray dogs over the territory, reduce the consequent negative impact on public health and safeguard these animals' welfare by proposing valid alternatives to "mass-killing".

New technological instruments for dog population management plans and non-surgical dog sterilisation systems rose particular interest, as they allow effective results by limiting costs and timings of birth control programmes.  With regards to such aspects experts from the G. Caporale Institute presented the results of three different ongoing projects, which involve the human-animal relationship and animal welfare laboratories as well as other Institute departments.

The first project, financed by the Italian Ministry of Health, aims to develop a manual for the quality management of dog pounds and indicators of dog welfare in such places, in order to enhance their living conditions. It further aims to implement an innovative instrument to help evaluate the entity of stray dog populations. The latter system, which was developed and successfully tested on the territory during the last year, was presented at the conference raising great interest amongst Veterinary Services and NGOs involved in the monitoring of stray dog populations.

In order to enhance the traceability of dogs, experts of the G. Caporale Institute have developed a new computerised Informational model for dog registry. Such model is already being adopted by the Molise, Sicily and Calabria regions and provides a variety of services aiming to guarantee the availability of updated and reliable data on registered dogs and facilitate the retrieval of lost dogs.

Finally, experts also presented the preliminary results of a study carried out in Chile in collaboration with the Chilean Ministry of Agriculture, the Canadian Veterinarians Without Borders Association (VWB) and the University of Pennsylvania. The study aims to assess the effectiveness of surgical and non-surgical sterilisation of male dogs with respect to aggressiveness reduction, predatory behaviour and dog straying.