Tips and Tricks for Practicing High-Quality Medicine on a Shoestring Budget

International animal welfare charities frequently face management dilemmas due to the large numbers of free-roaming and unowned animals that come through their doors. The World Health Organization estimates that there are more than 200 million free-roaming dogs worldwide. Unfortunately, stray animals can serve as competent reservoirs hosts of several zoonotic pathogens and a multitude of infectious diseases due to a lack of preventive veterinary care. Veterinarians working with such animals may struggle with how to treat such dogs effectively with a limited operating budget. Effective use of resources and disease management strategies are especially vital when well-intentioned rescue groups plan to send stray dogs from developing countries into adoptive homes internationally. Commonly observed diseases internationally in free-roaming animals include: • Skin disease (mange) • Transmissible venereal tumor (TVT) • Tick-borne disease (blood parasites) • Infectious diseases (parvovirus, distemper) • Trauma