Dog Dosing

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29901, 15 August 1962, Page 7

Dog Dosing

Sir, —At the time of the original dog-dosing debacle, I understood that a member of the City Council stated that dogs were to be dosed once each year only within the city area. From recent experience and inquiries it appears that dosing is being carried out approximately twice a year. Could you please indicate what is the position? The whole arrangement seems quite illogical and lacking in incentive, with no likely end to the dosing. There is no encouragement to those feeding correctly and no penalty on those feeding infected offal to their dogs unless caught. Is there anything to prevent dogs living on infected offal while still being dosed regularly? The owner of a dog which is again infected after dosing should surely be penalised, not the dog, otherwise how is hydatids to be eliminated? —Yours, etc., CAMIS. August 6, 1962. [The Senior Inspector of Health (Mr I. B. Snoadj said: “Dog dosing is being carried out in accordance with an approved scheme by which dogs found to be infected with hydatids are dosed at intervals until free of infection. All such cases are inquired into to ascertain if this was due to any adt or omission on the part of the owner, particularly in cases of reinfection, which have been practically non-existent. The penalty for allowing dogs to obtain access, to any raw diseased meat or to anj- raw offal is a fine of up to £-50, while for cases where dogs have been wilfully fed diseased meat, etc., the penalty is increased to £2OO. The steadily decreasing rate of disease incidence in city dogs and the rarity of a case of re-infection shows that most owners are taking their responsibilities seriously.”]