A study of dog ecology, dog bites and rabies vaccination rates was carried out in Bauchi
the capital city of Bauchi State, Nigeria using direct street counts and questionnaire survey administered
on 10% of the city streets selected by stratified random sampling. The questionnaire was
designed to obtain data in order to determine the dog to human population ratio, dog management
and care, cases of dog bites, consequences of the bites and frequencies of rabies outbreak. The estimated
dog population of street counts and compound counts were 5310 and 7670, respectively. The
overall human to dog ratio of 4.1:1 was established. The mean number of individuals per dog owning
compound was 9.6 ± 0.498 (SEM) and the mean number of dogs owned per dog owning compound
was 2.3 ± 0.108 (SEM). Majority of the dogs owned were local breeds (62.8%) aged
between 1 and 5 years old and managed under partial or no confinement. The dogs were mostly
used for security (69.5%) purposes. Dog owners reported low vaccination coverage (26.4%), level
considered not sufficient to prevent rabies transmission. About 12.4% of dog bite victims died and
majority of which (71.43%) manifested nervous signs before death. Domestic dogs have been shown
to be tolerated and kept in Bauchi but poorly managed in terms of feeding, confinement and vaccination
thereby constituting a continuous risk to domestic animals and humans.
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University.