The Francis of Assisi Park, affiliated with the Fraternity – International Humanitarian Federation, located in the city of Lavras, Minas Gerais, Brazil, has received training in electronic canine Identification promoted by the students of the Course of Veterinary Medicine of UFLA – Federal University of Lavras. At this activity, the students electronically identified almost 450 dogs that are sheltered at the kennel of the Park.
About 30 students arrived at the Park early in the morning. The visit was a part of the ‘Projeto Veterinário Aprendiz Voluntário’ (‘Learner Volunteer Veterinarian Project’), which is conducted with the students of the Veterinary course of the Federal University of Lavras. The project trains students in activities of animal care and diagnosis, ‘the objective of the project is to offer a space where the students may come and learn the routine of a kennel through all the cares of this practice. They perform the work that the kennel needs the most, whether a bandage, a cleaning or the ministration of some medicine’, affirms Ms Josi Seixas, a teacher at UFLA and the coordinator of the project.
While some gave support to the animal to be attended, others finished making the identification tags. “The idea of treating the animal as an individual and not as a group had been with us for a long time. Other forms of identification were experimented with, but they were not successful for several reasons”, explains Josi.
The collar that will hold the identification plate is made with a steel wire. On it are attached a TV connector and a plate, where their names will be written. In the chosen system of identification, also the CR – Canine Register was created, a number that accompanies the description of the animal. Before receiving the plate with its name, some information about the animal is collected, such as its history, diseases and treatments, and a photos. During the morning, several animals received the identification.
The student Beatriz Nadai was the photographer of the animals. She is in the seventh period of the course and had already heard of the Park, but only came to know it when the opportunity to participate in the project arose. “After getting to know the Francis Park, I once again liked veterinary medicine”, she says.
The voluntary work and the loving manner in which the animals are treated in the park have been an aspect of its work since its beginning, in June 2010, when the building was opened. Installed in a hut lent by the city hall, the park started receiving the first dogs in January 2011. At present, the kennel has about 450 abandoned or sick animals that have been removed from the streets. During their time in the park, the animals receive care, are healed and referred for adoption.
The administration is also performed by volunteers. One of the managers is Ana Regina Nogueira, who recently wrote the book “Viver o Amor aos Cães” (“Living the Love for the Dogs”). In the book we can get to know a little more of the history of this park and its different characters, and how a group of volunteers transformed a slaughterhouse that was located in the place in a happy kennel.
Ana, who administers the park ever since its creation, accompanied this third experience of electronic identification of the dogs of the kennel: “Identifying them is fundamental for their physical matters, for the veterinarian to accompany their health history so that they can offer them due cares and treatments. But there is a greater reason and more intense than this one. It is their spiritual evolution. Some day the dogs will enter the human evolutionary line, not on this planet, but on another. They will be humans”, Ana said.
