Vetnews | Junie 2024 24 « BACK TO CONTENTS As a one-woman animal welfare custodian in the Karoo town of Nieu Bethesda, Victoria Nance is especially grateful when veterinarians agree to host mass sterilisation clinics for impoverished pet owners. In addition to doing what she can for her community’s animals, Nance runs her own business. Time, and resilience, are her greatest enemy. “I find it incredibly difficult to take animals in small numbers to the nearest vets, 50km away in Graaff Reinet. “Animal welfare is quite a lonely job at times so when these CVC teams come in, I feel I’m not alone in fighting this battle; I feel they have my back.” Over several years, Nance has established a relationship with the EberVet CVC team from Somerset West who will come in for three or four days and sterilise as many cats, dogs and horses as she can sign up. “When we do a big steri like this there is an immense gratitude especially from the women in the community as they tend to be the ones left with all the new puppies to feed. The community is also very appreciative of the time the EberVet team takes to assist sick or injured animals.” Over four days in May, EberVet CVC sterilised 19 stallions and 85 cats and dogs in Nieu Bethesda, amputated the badly mauled legs of two dogs and dispensed countless medicines and parasiticides. Education is a vital component of every EberVet CVC mission so wherever possible the team shares its knowledge with pet owners, local volunteers, and with Nance with whom it remains in constant contact. “Education is a vital element of these projects,” says EberVet Pet Clinic’s clinic co-ordinator Sam Mann for whom CVC is a passion. “Just because someone is poor doesn’t mean they don’t love their animals; they simply don’t have the financial means or the knowledge to care for them optimally. To take a CVC team into a community like this means not only changing this animal’s life but we’re changing future animals’ lives too.” Nance says she’s already noticed a significant change in the general condition of animals in her town since CVC clinics started. Pet owners have become more aware of their animals, she says, they are more bonded with them, feed them better and understand the positive impact sterilisation can have on an animal’s health. Nieu Bethesda has a significant horse population which the EberVet team also tackled. Veterinary surgeon Dr Bennie Grobler explains: “There are several important reasons to geld in a community like this. Firstly, stallions are very territorial and therefore very confrontational. They fight and fight nasty. In a region like this where horses are used for transportation or herding cattle or sheep, aggressive stallions are a risk not only to each other, to mares and to foals but to humans too. That’s when that vicious cycle of ‘horses hurting humans, so humans hurt horses’ develops. “Secondly, in a semi-arid environment where grazing is scarce horses can literally destroy a field as they graze close to the ground, closer than sheep or cattle. The more horses there are, the more the environment is damaged and the more competition there is with other herd animals for food. “Thirdly, gelding protects the well-being of the mares. A mare that is constantly pregnant is feeding not only the foetus she carries but also her foal at foot, severely compromising her own nutritional status. “And of course, that brings the risk of diseases spreading among animals with lowered immunity,” Dr Bennie says. EberVet Petcare Group CEO Dr Hilldidge Beer, who has traversed the Karoo under the CVC banner for more than 10 years, likes that her team is able to empower pet owners to make better decisions regarding their pets’health and welfare.“These small towns are economically challenged, isolated and without veterinary support. By keeping animal numbers down through sterilisation, and by educating pet owners about compassionate pet care, we go a long way to improving the health and welfare status of the pets in these towns,” she says. v An initiative of the SOUTH AFRICAN VETERINARY ASSOCIATION Non-profit Company: 1998/016654/08 Non-profit Organisation: 000-234 NPO Public Benefit Organisation: 130001321 CVC News I CVC Nuus A clean sweep in the Great Karoo By Toni Younghusband
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