A qualitative study of the attitudes of members of a developing community towards their dogs and veterinary services.
A university-based hospital serving mainly a developing community readily appreciated that its clientele was from a very different sociological and cultural background than that of the professional staff and that developed and developing communities and their pets exhibit different patterns in their health status, with most diseases being predominantly related to socio-economic predicament. The need for a community-orientated service was recognised. From 1987 to 1988, the small animal outpatient clinic was used for an informal, unstructured sociological observation and interview-based study of the clientele and their pets. During this period, an informal educational programme was implemented to teach basic pet health care, and the efficacy of this programme was empirically gauged by comparing the knowledge and attitudes of first-time clients with those of regular clients. Regular clients appeared to become increasingly concerned about the health and management of their pets and the condition of their animals appeared to improve, with a corresponding decline in the degree of parasitism. The majority of clients however, still regarded the main reason for keeping dogs as the provision of some form of security. It also appeared as if improved attitudes towards household pets paralleled improvements in socio-economic status.
Hohn
E W
EW
Department of Companion Animal Medicine & Surgery, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Medunsa, Republic of South Africa.
Williams
J H
JH
Kirkpatrick
R D
RD
D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic; D001290:Attitude; D004285:Dogs; D006801:Humans; D010067:Ownership; D012923:Social Class; D013019:South Africa; D014730:Veterinary Medicine