Don’t use tranquilliser guns on dogs in compounds – DCM

KUCHING: Dogs that are kept in house compounds should not be shot with tranquillisers in order to vaccinate them, says Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah.

He stressed that this was one of the instructions given to enforcement personnel involved in the ongoing anti-rabies operation in Sarawak.

“The anti-rabies operation is a very challenging operation and sometimes it may be easy for the enforcement to catch stray dogs and sometimes it's not (easy), especially when the stray dogs are running around by the roadside and can easily sneak into places.

“But we have given very clear instructions (to personnel) that dogs that are in compounds should be vaccinated and no one should shoot the dogs,” he told reporters when met after witnessing the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Department of Agriculture Sarawak and Earthlings Coffee Workshop Sdn Bhd, at the Old Courthouse Auditorium here yesterday.

He was asked to comment on a recent viral video on social media which showed the operation's enforcement team being told off by a member of the public for allegedly tranquillising a dog in a house compound.

Uggah, who is also State Disaster Management Committee chairman, said he has seen the said video and is currently waiting for the full report on the matter.

“We are going to have a review of this operation on April 9 and they will brief me on the postmortem.”

Since the anti-rabies operation began on March 1, around 1,700 stray dogs have been removed from Bau and Lundu districts under the first phase of the operation.

“For these two districts, we found that there are some issues where some people were unaware that the operation is taking place, and there are also those who do not know the purpose of the operation,” revealed Uggah.