For the first time since 2014, Agriculture’s Animal Health Division will be surveying the island’s dog and cat population and they need the community’s help.

It's in collaboration with a visiting expert team from humane society international.

Territorial Veterinarian Dr. Mariana Turner said they will be going door to door, hitting ten villages from Feb. 13 to Feb. 21.

“There’s two components to the survey. The first part is going to basically be a dog and cat questionnaire. I like to call it a dog and cat census. So we will be going and talking to residents about how many animals they own, do they live inside or outside, do they get any veterinarian care, are there any challenges to getting veterinarian care and things like that like,” said Turner.

Another part of the survey will have them going out into the streets to count the free roaming cats and dogs.

The Animal Health Division aims to take what they learn from Humane Society International to conduct the count more frequently and for grant funding.

“Having these numbers as accurate as possible is going to help us get that grant funding. It’s also going to show us ‘are our current efforts good enough?’ Is there any area of concern that we’re not addressing that we need to create a solution for,” added Turner.

She calls the survey a thermometer that will gauge how they need to shift what they are currently focusing on.

There are already a handful of animal welfare programs like animal control and the ‘spay and neuter island pets’ clinics.

“We just finished up our latest community event at the Sinajana Mayor’s Office. It was pretty successful. We did about 33 animals per day over 7 days or so. That booked up pretty quickly so we’re happy with that,” Turner said.

But she admits there’s always room for improvement.

The division had to pause their responsible pet ownership events after losing staff last year and are building their workforce back up.

They also have plans to hire six new Animal Control officers to bolster their current team of three.

“The stray dog population issues are not solely a Department of Agriculture issue. It’s not solely a GAIN issue. It’s an islandwide issue. So if we can educate and teach the community how to help us, how to be responsible pet owners, then it will multiply our ability to have these programs be successful,” she said.

It’s why she invites the community to get involved with the solution.