Tomorrow is the last day for free dog de-sexing clinics as part of an overall effort to tackle Samoa’s canine problem.

The clinics have been carried out by Massey University's Vets together with the help of the staff of the Animal Protection Society of Samoa (A.P.S.).

Vets from Massey University in New Zealand travel three times a year to carry out this service, and they are usually in the country for two weeks to do the clinics. 

Yesterday, the clinic was held at Lepea.

Vaifale Peti Williams used the opportunity to de-sex his dogs. 

“Ever since these clinics, we’ve seen the decrease in the number of stray dogs in our village,” said Vaifale. “Although we still see a lot of dogs roaming around town, but there has been a lot of improvement since the beginning of these clinics.”

Vaifale extended his gratitude to the vets from Massey University.

“It is not an easy thing to do,” he said. “They travelled all the way from New Zealand to do the clinics for free for our dogs, and I want to thank them for their hard work.”

He also wanted to thank the A.P.S. and the Dog Management Unit for supporting the initiative and for working together with the students from Massey University in the clinics. 

Malcolm Jack from the Small Animal Surgical Resident at Massey University said the programme has been carried out for almost six years now. 

“Recently we have two or three trips to Samoa per year,” he said. 

“We bring out some of the students and we just de-sex as many dogs as we can during the time we are in Samoa. There is no targeted number for us when we do our clinics but we’ve noticed that we have about two hundreds dogs being brought in after two weeks.”

In terms of costs, Malcolm said that they always do donations in order for them to be able to come here and do the clinics. 

“We always ask the University supplier and other vet clinics around to just help us with donation to help raise some money to allow us to come here.”

“The students who are under this programme are usually the final year students at Massey University and this is attached to their academic work and will help them graduate.”

Said Malcolm, the main aim of the programme is to help reduce the population of stray dogs in Samoa. 

“Reducing the population of stray dogs in Samoa means that you can also reduce some of the diseases that they can get, not only infectious but also parasitical as well. The main aim is to control the population of stray dogs.”

Today (Thursday) the clinics will be held at Vailoa at the residence of the village Mayor. 

And the clinics for tomorrow will be held at the Police Headquarters in the police parking area.