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Companion animals News Regional priorities

Training of DPM trainers

Dog population management in the region is still a targeted priority by RAWC. Most countries in the Balkans have national legislation regulating the control of dogs and set rules for owned animals, including commercial breeding and keeping of animals, as well as identification of animals. The management of dog populations remains to be a challenge that has not been effectively tackled. There is a great need for a long-term preventative approach that targets the source of unwanted animals, so we organized another training of trainers. We would like to thank the City of Skopje for their help in the organisation and for opening the doors of their facilities so that we could successfully finish the workshop.

Training was held from 5th to 8th of July 2022 in Skopje, North Macedonia. Training was conducted by Elly Hibby, PhD, an Independent Animal Welfare Consultant and Scientific Coordinator to the International Companion Animal Management (ICAM) Coalition. 

The training comprised theoretical courses, practical workshops as well as E-learning modules using an online platform TALEA. It also included daily population monitoring on the streets and surveying the general public regarding the stray dog problem. Twelve trainees represented six different countries from the region. As always RAWC identified experts with different, but complementary backgrounds all with the plan for further development of the regional DPM program.

Finally, we are very proud to say that with this workshop we have trained in total 17 experts from 7 Countries thus far. Countries involved in these training events were – Bosnia (1 person), Croatia (2), Serbia (3), Slovenia (1), N. Macedonia (5), Kosovo (3) and , Montenegro (2). Our plan is to further build on this network of experts in the upcoming year.