World famous rock star Ronnie Wood has teamed up with fellow celebrities Leona Lewis, Jodi Picoult and Natalie Imbruglia to celebrate a major milestone for World Animal Protection, as the organisation nears the wonderful milestone of administering 1 million rabies vaccinations to dogs around the world.
The global charity has joined forces with the animal loving celebrities to celebrate the milestone which helps to save more lives and safeguard communities from the deadly, but forgotten disease that is taking the lives of thousands of dogs daily and killing five times as many people as Ebola.
Speaking about the campaign the Rolling Stones musician said, “Our dog Dolly is a wonder dog beagle extraordinaire! She’s very loving. All dogs should be treated responsibly, with understanding and compassion, which is why I support World Animal Protection’s campaign to create a better life for dogs around the world.”
A spokesman for the World Animal Protection said: “Each and every dog around the world deserves love and protection but many face abuse, disease, starvation and death because they are homeless. Many are abandoned by owners who no longer care or pay for them. We are leading the way to end the unnecessary deaths of millions of dogs, every year, caused by the fear of rabies or dog bites.
Every day, thousands of dogs are violently killed because of rabies. Dragged through streets, electrocuted, poisoned or gassed – culling is a painful death. We are grateful to Leona, Jodi and Natalie for helping us shine a light on how dog lovers in any country can work together to protect dogs in another.”
There are 700 million dogs in the world today. Many of them are unwanted, unhealthy and unvaccinated. Fear of bites and rabies means that millions are killed every year.
It is a tragic reality that thousands of people around the world continue to die from rabies each year, even though it’s almost 100% preventable. Innocent dogs also suffer as a result.
World Animal Protection is working around the globe to end the cruel culling of dogs in the name of rabies. They’ve worked with governments in Asia and Africa to implement vaccination schemes since 2011 and show that this approach works. There are no human rabies cases reported in pilot sites in China since the charity worked there in 2012 and in Zanzibar since 2013.
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