You may remember that in an incredible turnaround for animal welfare, four members of Kabul Municipality’s staff, who had been members of the teams poisoning the free-roaming dogs in Kabul, were interviewed and chosen by Mayhew International for retraining to become humane dog catchers for a Trap Vaccinate Neuter and Release (TVNR) programme that is being introduced in Kabul – a first in Afghanistan.

A team of 4 dog catchers are now receiving training in India from Human Society International (HSI). HSI are conducting the training over 3 weeks. HSI have been dog catching for 12 years and they are training the dog catchers to humanely catch dogs with poles and nets and handle the dogs. The plan is that they will return to Kabul to train other Municipality dog catchers and implement the capture of the street dogs in the city in order to vaccinate them against rabies, neuter and release them back to their community areas. This is a real behaviour change in terms of the humane treatment of free-roaming dogs and for animal welfare in the region.

The Kabul trainees will be travelling to Noida near Delhi to gain practical and hands-on experience catching dogs on the streets.  Mayhew International’s Dr. Mo is accompanying and advising the Kabul Municipality staff and also advising and checking on surgeries in India while he is there.

On 22nd January 2017 we signed a landmark agreement so that Kabul City authorities halted the cruel practice of culling street dogs through strychnine poisoning which is a slow and very painful death. In the long-term we are working with them to plan and implement an animal welfare strategy encompassing a mass rabies vaccination and a humane Trap Vaccinate Neuter and Release (TVNR) programme. The Mayhew became a registered NGO in Afghanistan last year.

Afghanistan Timeline 2017