Egypt’s once-reviled street dogs get chance at a better life

Karim Hegazi spends his days in a Cairo clinic taking care of animals long considered a menace in Egypt.

Stray dogs roam in almost every Cairo neighborhood — lurking in construction sites, scavenging through trash and howling nightly atop parked cars. government says re’s around 15 million of m. y bite some 200,000 people a year, according to World Health Organization, and spre rabies, one of world’s most lethal diseases.

And if that wasn’t reason eugh to feel revulsion toward dogs, a famous Islamic saying attributed to Prophet Muhamm warns that angels won’t enter your home if re’s a dog inside.

Yet after centuries of stigma, street dogs of Egypt are finding popular acceptance, and along with it, surging grassroots support. That includes option and medical care, as well as spaying and neutering to keep m from producing more puppies on streets. Volunteers armed with giant fishing nets and tranquilizer darts embark on regular missions to catch, vaccinate and sterilize dogs before letting m loose.

se efforts are making inros against prevailing government policy of extermination by poison.

“I’ve seen a major shift ... people are seeing a value in strays,” said Hegazi, 32, from his veterinary hospital in upscale suburb of Mai. He says he’s longer treating just foreign pooches, but also a growing number of opted “bali” dogs, once-reviled Egyptian street breed. Even pious Muslim clients are taking in street dogs. Hegazi says y often reconcile ir religious beliefs and love of dogs by keeping m in grassy yards or on rooftops.

Egypt’s upper and middle classes have increasingly opted Western-inspired ideas of dog ownership. Pet hotels, cafes and grooming emporiums are sprouting up in major Egyptian cities. Fueled by rise of social media, enthusiasm for Cairo’s dogs is “moving beyond sb culture,” said local vocate Amina Abaza.

A Facebook forum for vet recommendations exploded into a community of 13,000 pet lovers tring stray rescue stories. Dozens of new shelters coordinate options online, flooding Instagram feeds with ims of abandoned puppies.

What has surfaced online is spilling into streets. Some of Cairo’s more well-to-do districts are mobilizing spay and neuter teams to counter what vocates describe as gruesome government methods to control dog population.

General Organization for Veterinary Services, an arm of agricultural ministry, routinely sends authorities to kill strays by scattering poison in streets overnight, according to a dozen activists and residents. y say y’ve woken up to find carcasses piled on curbs, or sick dogs wailing in distress.

“It’s a horrible way to die,” said Mohamed Shehata, founder of Egyptian Vets for Animal Care, or EVAC. It’s country’s first spay and neuter program, also based in Mai.

government organization did t respond to questions about its policy. But in a recent report, it described street dogs as a “time bomb that threatens our children,” and defended “merciful killing of dogs that are harmful to people,” citing Islamic law.

After French inved Egypt in 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops spent two nights shooting all of Cairo’s street dogs because of ir raucous ise. According to American historian Juan Cole, y were likely employed as informal watchdogs in city’s winding alleys. Major dog erication campaigns in Egypt stemmed from city’s explosive growth in early 1800s, when dogs became scavengers dependent on Cairo’s ubiquitous mounds of garb, said Alan Mikhail, professor of Ottoman history at Yale University. As part of a public hygiene push, authorities trapped, shot and poisoned dogs en masse.

se days, a consensus is emerging among experts that “poison is t a real solution to rabies or to overpopulation,” said Shehata. A toxic substance called citrinin is used to kill off dogs, but most of it ends up seeping into soil and cement, poisoning gardeners, garb workers and children playing in street. Culling street dogs doesn’t stop spre of disease eir, he ded, as over 70% of stray population must be vaccinated to attain herd immunity.

Shehata described his group’s spaying and neutering efforts as “a more humane, scientific, and effective way,” to regulate country’s strays. His group kicked off Egypt’s first mass rabies vaccination drive this month, inspired by WHO’s goal to eliminate human deaths from dog-transmitted rabies by 2030.

On a misty morning last weekend, teams of volunteers scampered after wild dogs in Mai, bolting down wide boulevards and trash-littered train tracks. A cacophony of yelps and barks filled air as terrified dogs were trapped in nets, n injected with vaccines. Neighbors woken by ise watched from ir balconies in bewilderment. method may appear ruthless, but Shehata insists it’s for best, and keeps dogs rabies-immune for a year.

Volunteers also spay and neuter strays at clinic. dogs are dropped off where y were caught, with a tch cut in ir ear to show y’ve been sterilized. model is being replicated in at least five central Cairo districts, where local groups say y’ve seen dog populations stabilize or decline and threat of rabies wane, although government doesn’t make rabies infection figures public.

Vigilante hunters still scatter poison in dog food and request government exterminators, said Rasha Hussein, a Mai resident who runs a vet training center outside Cairo. But she said efforts by groups like EVAC have encourd compassion. Residents w coordinate meal deliveries and medical checks for ear-tagged dogs that have become a mainstay in ir areas. Just five years ago, EVAC volunteers were chased out of neighborhood.

Shehata says his teams have treated some 10,000 stray dogs over last few years.

Egypt’s push follows successes in similar developing countries. Animal welfare proponents hope se gains can spark a worldwide movement.

Turkey’s cities, which once promoted systematic slaughter of street dogs, w provide strays with government-sponsored medical evaluations, sterilization and shelter. Indian provinces historically ravd by rabies, where Shehata trained, have driven down death rates through coordinated campaigns.

But leing veterinarians say Egypt’s efforts still lack state funding or a legal framework to protect animals, meaning future of country’s street dogs remains uncertain.

“We will do our best to reach our targets,” said Hegazi while carrying his next patient, barking and srting, into exam room. “But it’ll take a much longer time.”

Im Source: AP