I have two dogs at home and they do not go out by themselves anymore. Not since the rabies outbreak in Kuching.
The current rabies outbreak is the first I am experiencing since moving to Kuching almost 40 years ago.
When I first learnt about the outbreak , I was worried about my dogs.”Where can I get them vaccinated? How much will each vaccination cost?” These were among the questions I asked myself and my immediate family members.
Initially, news of the outbreak was scary. First, we heard about the outbreak in Serian. Not long after that, it spread to Kuching. And this happened despite the mass vaccination for pets in the first Serian village which was affected.
I would like to thank the state government and Sarawak United People’s Party for organising the free mass vaccinations for the dogs, particularly Kuching. A rabies vaccination for a dog at a private clinic costs RM55. I was already prepared to fork out RM110 for my dogs just to show how much I loved them!
The first mass vaccination for the dogs in Kuching took place at Kampung Semeba, not far from the city centre. I only knew about it at the end of the day when I was handling news about it in the office.
However, thanks to the social media, I knew in advance about the next one which was scheduled to take place at the Basketball Court at Kota Sentosa or Mile 7 Bazaar in Kuching.
My niece, Ah Hong, and I made sure we woke up early that morning We did not want to arrive at the venue long after the rabies vaccines had been used up.
On the night before the event, my niece did some calculations to make sure that our house was within the 10-km radius of the basketball court, one of the requirements that house owners apparently had to meet before their dogs could be vaccinated.
After punching out figures on her handphone and checking with her boyfriend, Ah Hong told me, with confidence, that we were living indeed within the 10 -km radius of the designated mass vaccination centre. I wondered then if any unlucky dogs and their owners were ever turned down because they were not staying within the 10-km radius of a vaccination centre.
On the day of the vaccination, before the long drive to the vaccination centre, we had to cover all the car seats except for the driver’s seat with big plastic sheets and pieces of newspaper.
My dogs are not used to car rides and if we have to take them to the vets, we have to prepare lots of plastic sheets and pieces of newspaper in case they fall sick.
We were unprepared for dog motion sickness once and the car was really messy after that first car ride with the dogs. That was a hard lesson we learnt.
My dogs, I think, undertook the longest drive in their short lives on the day my niece and I brought them to the rabies vaccination centre at Kota Sentosa. It was also a traumatic day for them, and probably the other dogs too.
Surprisingly, there was ample parking space outside the venue. The flow of traffic was smooth, thanks to the members of the People’s Volunteer Corps (Malay: Jabatan Sukarelawan Malaysia), abbreviated RELA, who were on duty and efficiently showed the public and their dogs the way.
We did not have to wait long before it was time for our dogs to be vaccinated. The dogs flinched a bit when they were vaccinated.
The jabs must have been painful for them. They must have found the large number of other kinds of dogs of various sizes and the large crowd of people overwhelming.
At home, strange dogs cannot pass within three feet of our gate without the two dogs barking hard at them. Yet, at the vaccination centre, they were as timid as mice and kept close to my niece and I.
Before long, the vaccinations were over and we were on our way home. In the car, I sat in the back seat to accompany the dogs and calm them down.
That day, I was glad Ah Hong took it upon herself to wash the car seats and clean the car.
Next day, when I told my son, who was away, that I had taken the dogs for vaccination at Kota Sentosa, his reply on Whatsapp was “Make sure, the car’s back seat is clean.”
My reply to him was “No problem. Ah Hong washed and cleaned the car seats yesterday.”
Since the vaccination, I have been keeping my dogs inside the house compound, as advised by the State Veterinary Department. If they need to go out, one of the family members will put leashes on them and walk with them.
I hope the rabies outbreak will die down and life will be normal again for my dogs. That they will get to enjoy the outdoors again and we do not have to walk with them everytime they need to go out and explore the neighbourhood.
