On this World Veterinary Day, as I sat down for my morning coffee and to check on messages in my phone, I was very happy to see first the message from Dr Shireen Lawrence, thanking me for the mentoring I had provided to him over ten years ago, as he was beginning his career as a veterinarian. It was fully unexpected message and I felt very honoured and humbled by him remembering and recognising me in such a role, so many years later.

With over 15 years in the field of surgical capacity building, such messages continue to inspire and motivate me in finding and developing new ways how to empower veterinarians to humanely tackle the problem of overpopulation of free-roaming dogs.

This today’s WVS blog post written by me, summaries my current view of thinking when it comes to humane dog population management in India. I have written about it also earlier in my previous personal blog under the Hill View Farm Animal Refuge – website. Specifically the topics that I had covered there include my very first write up of the topic ‘Access to veterinary care’ , followed by ‘Barriers to accessible veterinary care’, ‘What is an OT?’, ‘Owned dogs – the low-hanging but ignored fruit in ABC programs?’, and ‘Pet dog stock images can mislead audience in roaming dog issues’.

I am old-fashioned in many ways and one of them is the fact that I am still fascinated by blog writing – not because I a1m specifically good in it and not because I even expect lot of people to read my texts – but simply because the process of writing such texts helps me to develop and structure my thoughts around a topic. Such as access to vet care and its role in the large street dog population in India.