The Dogs of Nepal

A staggering number of canines — between 23,000 to 30,000 — roam the streets of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Tourists can’t help but notice these rail-thin, mangy-looking dogs as they scavenge for garbage, wander the streets, curl up in shop doorways or sleep in public squares. Most don’t know that many of these canines carry rabies and that the city government for years set out poisoned meat at night to kill street dogs to curb the burgeoning canine population.

During our fall 2017 trip to Nepal, my husband Dave and I also noticed the sickly-looking street dogs as we took a day to explore Thamel, the tourist section of Kathmandu. The next day, I read a Himalayan Times story that didn’t seem plausible. It featured a “dog hotel” in the Kathmandu Valley that had opened in 2006 as well as a photo of a Nepali hugging a small white furry friend. The Paws-Play and Stay facility, owned and operated by a veterinarian, sounded much like the doggie resorts in this country. Judging from the newspaper account, dog clients are treated to a high level of care, including veterinarian examinations, playtime, walks, treadmill workouts, fully body massages, and cuddle time. How could such a place exist in an area filled with so many unowned and unhealthy street dogs?

Today, the Kathmandu government no longer uses poison to control its street dog population, according to two avid animal lovers who now reside in the central Colorado mountains but have lived in the Kathmandu Valley.

Amber van Leuken lived there in the fall of 2002 while she was a Cornell University senior on a study abroad program. Since then, she’s returned six times to Kathmandu, including a November 2018 trip. Flo Chrusciel worked there as a clinical nurse for the U.S. Embassy from 1997 to 2005.

Both recently discussed how the Kathmandu Animal Treatment Centre (KAT) introduced a spay/neuter option as a way to control Kathmandu’s street dogs. They attributed its work for changing many Nepalis’ attitude toward dogs.

When she first visited Nepal in 1984 and then moved there in 1997, Chrusciel said that many property owners in the Kathmandu area caged their canines during the day and let them out at night to stand guard. But she also recalled plenty of unclaimed street dogs.

Then KAT, founded by Jan Salter, opened its doors in 2004 in the Kathmandu suburb of Budanikantha. Salter had first visited Nepal in 1967 and fell in love with the country and its people. Some years later, this Englishwoman moved there, first working as a hairdresser before turning into a talented painter of the many faces (more than a hundred different ethnic groups) of Nepal. On a trip to Jaipur, India, she learned about high volume spay and neuter and vaccination techniques. That’s what sparked her idea to establish KAT at the age of 67. She created the nonprofit organization to establish a healthy, stable street canine population in a humane way, eliminate rabies, and change the Nepalese attitude toward canines.

During her years in Nepal, Chrusciel spent hours chatting with Salter about KAT and attended the opening ceremonies at the facility located on an acre in a residential area. KAT leased the land and buildings. The facility included buildings for offices, surgeries, and housing for dogs with small runs.

In 2016, KAT bought nearby property on a hillside adjacent to a natural area. Its facility now includes a large outside yard where dogs can play, larger dog runs and a two-story building. KAT employs two dog catchers, two veterinarians, a dog “carer,” a cook/cleaner, and a financial coordinator plus four regular volunteers. More than 110 animals reside at the facility.

Van Leuken explained the procedure that KAT uses to reduce the street dog population. Dog catchers use burlap bags to capture dogs from a targeted location but not before they talk to three people who either live or work in the immediate vicinity to tell them that the dogs will be neutered or spayed, vaccinated, and treated for health issues before they are returned to the same location. A small cut on a female’s ear designates that she has been spayed. When the KAT workers return the spayed/neutered healthy dogs, they try to talk to the same three people and ask them to contact the center if they notice any problems with the dogs.

KAT has spayed, neutered, vaccinated and otherwise treated nearly 28,700 dogs as of 2016, according to its website.

The plight of dogs in Nepal left lasting impressions on both Chrusciel and van Leuken. Their current chosen profession and/or avocation is animal rescue.

Chrusciel fell in love with Nepal and its people on her 1986 trip to that country when she visited the Everest region. She returned to Nepal every couple of years, finally settling in the Kathmandu Valley in 1997.  Soon after, she started adopting street cats and dogs. She met Salter and became involved with KAT. When she returned to live in the United States, she braved twenty-four hours plus of travel time with her five adoptees: four street dogs and one cat. She settled in Buena Vista and visited the local Ark-Valley Humane Society (Ark-Valley) where she reconnected with van Leuken, a shelter volunteer.

Both women realized that they’d met years before- in Nepal. Chrusciel had spoken about health issues to a group of Cornell students in a study abroad program in Nepal. Van Leuken was among the students.

Chrusciel became involved with Ark-Valley, fostering cats and dogs, and also served on its Board of Directors. When she isn’t working as a nurse at a local hospital, she fosters senior and special needs cats and dogs, and transports animals from a shelter in southwestern Colorado to the Ark-Valley facility.

At Cornell, van Leuken majored in anthropology. But a horrific experience in Nepal left a life-long impression that led her to a career dedicated to helping animals.

For part of her semester abroad, she lived on the outskirts of Kathmandu in housing provided by Cornell. She fed and became emotionally attached to one stray, a medium-sized tan mixed breed dog with short hair and upright ears, that came around looking for food. The dog had puppies that she’d tucked out of sight. One day, van Leuken watched one of the puppies venture out of its hiding place onto a dirt street into the path of a motorcycle that coasted downhill and ran over the puppy. Van Leuken rushed to the puppy and knew it needed immediate medical attention. She ran back to the house and quickly convinced Tulsi, a staff member of the study abroad program, to find a taxi to drive her and the pup to a veterinary clinic in Kathmandu.

“It was a cold experience,” van Leuken recalled. The vet’s office just wanted her to leave the pup there. She refused; she didn’t want the pup to suffer any longer and knew it was too injured to live. But she couldn’t bear to stay with the pup. She agreed to leave only after Tulsi confirmed the puppy had been put down.

That experience was a defining moment in van Leuken’s life. After returning to Cornell, she began volunteering at a county animal shelter and later fostered dogs. She moved west after college graduation, volunteered at the Ark Valley shelter, and became its executive director in 2017.

Without a doubt, Nepal’s dogs and people have stolen a piece of her heart. She keeps returning to Nepal to trek or volunteer since her college years. In May 2017, she joined a group of Cornell alumni to trek in the Annapurna region and found time to deliver $2,000 in donations and suitcases full of supplies and flea and tick medicine to KAT.  In February 2018, she again visited the centre, this time with her husband, and donated $1,000 that she’d raised plus more supplies and flea and tick medication. Several pharmaceutical companies donated the medical supplies both times. Two months later, she and a fellow Cornell alumnus, Alex Chang, formed the Big Namaste Trekking Company. They teamed up with three Nepali brothers of the Kulung ethnic group to lead “culturally immersive treks that give back to local

projects.” (http://bignamaste.com/)

She hopes to raise more funds and bring additional supplies when she returns to Nepal twice this year.

On her 2018 visits to Nepal, she noticed a change in the attitude of some Nepalis towards dogs. That change was reflected by what she observed at KAT and area attractions.

KAT allows some dogs with special needs to live out their lives at the facility and other canines may be adopted, van Leuken explained. On her latest trip to KAT in February 2018, she fell for a one-eyed black Labrador only to learn that he’d leave the following week to go to his new home in Switzerland.

She recalled observing a “tough looking” Nepali construction worker scoop up and cuddle a KAT puppy after it snuck out a gate.

And in November 2018, she encountered healthy and neutered/spayed (even fat) dogs hanging out at a stupa (a Buddhist dome-shaped shrine) in Kathmandu.

Van Leuken believes that more Nepalis are viewing canines as pets instead of just as guard dogs. Free-roaming mountain dogs seem to receive better care than their city counterparts and are valued protectors of crops and animals. Some have collars, a sign that they are owned by a family, while others appear healthy and cared for by an entire village. However, she discourages trekkers from feeding mountain dogs because those canines may come to rely on hikers for food and wander from village to village where they are more in danger of predators or getting in fights with other canines.

There are other signs of a changing attitude towards dogs in Nepal.

In 2010, a former KAT employee opened up a nonprofit organization a couple hundred miles from Kathmandu, according to Chrusciel. The Himalayan Animal Rescue Treatment Centre (HART) serves not only the cities of Pokhara and Bharatpur but also rural areas. Pokhara, a city of about 300,000, is the starting point for the popular Annapurna trek.

According to the HART website, female dogs are spayed but males are only altered upon request. Canines are released back to the area that they were collected after they heal unless a responsible person steps up to care for them. This group also aids animals other than dogs, has staff veterinarians, and a mobile clinic.

Life is looking up for at least some of this third world country’s canines!

Additional information/resources: http://www.katcentre.org.np/ and http://www.hartnepal.org/

If interested in donating to van Leuken’s fund: https://www.gofundme.com/nepal-street-dogs-kat-centre

Related articles: https://www.caryunkelbach.com/trekking-nepal-hiking-everest-base-camp-route/#

https://www.caryunkelbach.com/best-friends-saving-canines-by-the-thousands/