Bhutan PM urges all citizens to adopt stray dogs as King's birthday gift
Tshering urged people to give the King a gift by either planting a tree, adopting a stray dog or committing to managing waste in your neighborhood
Bhutan's Prime Minister Lotay Tshering on Friday asked people to adopt a stray dog or plant a tree as a gift for the King's birthday.
The King turned 40 years old on Friday (February 21). That is why, Tshering urged people to give the King a gift by either planting a tree, adopting a stray dog or committing to managing waste in your neighborhood, Republic World reported.
"At an individual level, Prime Minister said one can choose to plant a tree and care for it, adopt a stray dog or commit to managing waste in your neighborhood. Personal commitment such as this, he said, would be the best gift for His Majesty. He also announced several programs in the areas of economy, education, health, and technology. The programs will be launched over the period of one year," Bhutan's PMO stated in the press release.
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Stray dogs in Bhutan
The Bhutan government has been taking a number of measures to reduce birth of free-roaming dogs and encourage adoption of stray dogs. In July last year, it launched a project called Bhutan's National Dog Population Management Strategy. Tshering had earlier said that the growing dog population has created serious problems in the country. A number of steps has been taken to tackle it through community-based initiatives, the PM had said. Bhutan also has two mobile applications – mass dog vaccination and dog population management – that helps officials working in the field to monitor the team and have access to information like the number of neutered dogs.
Informing about the recent development, a Bhutan based journalist Namgay Zam said that she has already adopted 3 stray dogs and urged others to do so. The small Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan is focussed towards happiness of the citizens, and 9th article of its constitution cites it as a goal. In the last census carried out in 2015 by the Ministry of happiness, 35% of the population answered 'extremely happy', 47.9% said they felt 'moderately happy', and only 8.8% of respondents said they were 'unhappy'.
