Animal lovers are going village to village this week, conducting a dog and cat population survey. 

 

To give you an idea how this works, KUAM tagged along for a mock count in Humatak. 

“So basically what we’re going to do is walk the route that we have. When we see a cat, if they might have an injury, collar or skin issues then we will mark that and record it. And then similar things for the dogs,” Territorial Veterinarian Dr. Mariana Turner explained.  

“ We’re not counting animals that are properly confined or dogs that are tied. This count is specifically for free roaming populations,” Turner added. 

And moments into the route, we spotted two dogs roaming free. 

“We have a lactating mom with a collar and a little cutie following her,” said Turner. 

Agriculture’s Animal Health Division and Guam Animals in Need are learning from experts with Humane World for Animals like Kerry "Kaz" Zalenski, its Companion Animals and Engagement Director. 

“Doing these sorts of surveys are a critical aspect of any dog population management program, because as Dr. Turner said, it allows us to know how many dogs we have that are free roaming,” said Zalenski. 

On average, a female dog has 5.5 puppies per year and that number can quickly snowball out of control. 

“As programs get underway, you can then use that to measure progress. So usually teams that put together these programs will do it twice or once a year to be able to say ‘oh, okay we really ramped up our spay and neuter program. We’re now seeing the results,’” added Zalenski. 

The spay and neuter island pets clinics just celebrated their third year anniversary this Valentine’s Day, successfully sterilizing more than 7,000 cats and dogs to date. 

But how do we measure progress? 

It's what the survey hopes to answer, which they can then use for more grant funding. 

“Anytime you’re writing any grant, we can’t just say we have a lot of dogs. Exactly how many times do people call animal control and ask for stray animal removal, or ‘oh, they’re pooing in my yard,’ or ‘the momma dog came in from I don’t know where and she had puppies. Please help.’ We get these calls all the time. So having accurate numbers will help us with grant writing and to get more sources of funding,” said Turner.