Mexican company develops food to control the huge population of dogs that live on the street

Most likely you’ve come across one, 2 or even 10 stray dogs on your way to work. Without food, without water to drink on hot days and without a house to shelter them in cold and rainy days, these animals live in pitiful conditions. Unfortunately, so far no one has come up with a 100% viable solution to control this situation.

But the awesome.club there’s good news! A young Mexican girl thought of a way to change this sad scenario, let’s see more details about her proposal.

Almost every day we see publications on our social networks of people with their pets: they are always beautiful, vaccinated, well-fed and happy animals. However, outside the virtual world and our homes, the situation is very different. Many animals are not so lucky and have to seek shelter every day to protect themselves from the harsh weather conditions. When they try to seek shelter or something to eat in an establishment, they are often mercilessly expelled. And the number of dogs living in these situations is really high. Check out some data and statistics on stray dogs that show the drama of this scenario:

It is estimated that there are more or less 1 billion dogs on the planet; according to estimates, 750 million live on the street🇧🇷 That is, around 75%. About 8 out of 10 puppies that are born in these conditions die before completing one year of life. In Latin America, the Mexico is the country with the most dogs in these situations: more or less 23 million. 75% of street dogs were not vaccinated. The population of dogs in stray conditions grows 20% per year, about. A stray dog ​​usually defecates 400 g and urinates 800 ml in the streets every day.

These little dogs, in addition to the complicated life they have to face, also represent a health problem for the human population for the following reasons:

Rampant reproduction. Disease transmission. Feces on the streets are also serious sources of infections.

Given the alarming situation behind these numbers and with the aim of thinking of a viable solution to control the problem of stray dogs in Mexico, a researcher and student at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Zootechnics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) started to develop a natural contraceptive that could put an end to this huge problem: a dog food.

The researcher’s name is Sheila Irais Peña Corona. Along with other researchers from the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM), since 2017 she has been trying to create contraceptive foods for population control considered harmful, such as doves, bats, rodents and stray dogs. Its study is being done through experiments in vitro (i.e. tests performed in test tubes, outside any organism).

With these tests in vitro, Sheila managed to stop the ovarian follicles (those responsible for releasing hormones and promoting the reproductive cycle during ovation) from becoming mature and, therefore, unable to carry out reproduction. This means that the drug created by Sheila could significantly inhibit fertility in animals. In addition, she managed to provoke hormonal changes necessary for reproduction. It is important to highlight that the females used in the experiment have owners and all of them allowed the tests to be carried out.

Sheila was able to complete the feed development project. It is a product of plant origin to which androgens and progestins have been added that inhibit fertility and reproduction in humans and animals. These foods are capable of inhibiting from one to 2 heats in bitches. However, the feeds are still in their experimental stage so that possible reactions can be better studied in the medium and long term.

While there are many attempts to control the stray dog ​​population, sterilization is still the most massive. However, this method still has some problems that make the contraceptive diet a more viable solution.

Advantages of contraceptives:

Feeding is not as invasive a method as neutering. Being a natural contraceptive method, it is also less harmful. It does not require recovery time and care that stray dogs unfortunately cannot count on.

Disadvantages of contraceptives:

The cost of the ration could be greater than the massive sterilization campaigns that many governments advocate. So far, results have inhibited one to two periods of heat; sterilization permanently prevents reproduction.

Despite still being in the experimental phase, we believe that the feed is an important advance in the control of dog reproduction and is a method that could accompany the sterilization campaigns that many countries already carry out. In your opinion, what would be the best method? Are there programs that seek to improve the living conditions of animals that live on the streets in your city? Share your opinion in the comments.