Eskasoni teams with SPCA to deal with stray animals
Two-month pilot to spay and neuter roaming dogs and feral cats
Eskasoni First Nation in Cape Breton has reached out to the Nova Scotia SPCA to help it deal with the problem of roaming dogs and feral cats.
A team from the SPCA will be in Eskasoni on Friday to begin planning a spay and neuter program.
The SCPA's chief provincial inspector, Jo-Anne Landsburg, told CBC's Information Morning Cape Breton that the community contacted the agency about a year ago for help with its dog problem.
"Some of these animals don't have homes; they're just wandering the streets," she said. "They're fighting with other animals.
Hungry and aggressive
"Some of them can potentially become aggressive when they're looking for food. They're attacking family pets."
Landsburg said some of the dogs, if they're not pets, will be removed from the community, undergo a behaviour assessment, be spayed or neutered, and adopted if possible.
She said the program will take time.
"Right now, there's a lot of animals running loose out there, so we want to first address some of the animals that are most in need," she explained.
Restoring animals to health
"If they do have a home, what we're going to be doing is getting the animals healthy, so we'll be looking at vaccinating them, getting them dewormed and getting them spayed and neutered."
Landsburg said the SPCA wants to educate people about how their dogs can live longer if spayed or neutered.
"To prolong their life, it's better to keep them at home. We'll be looking at some ways of confinement," she said. "If the animals are spayed and neutered, they're less likely to roam and it also protects them from potential cancers."
Two months have been allotted by the SPCA for the pilot.
With files from Information Morning Cape Breton