FOR years, the bark of a stray dog was the sound of a problem, an animal once thought to be best managed behind the walls of a pound.
But Cebu City’s new program, Catch, Neuter, Vaccinate, and Return (CNVR), is changing that fate. Instead of impounding animals, the city is implementing a humane approach, treating strays as members of the community, not as a nuisance.
This shift is a key part of the City’s plan to protect both animal and human lives.
The effort, which also includes the microchipping of all dogs in the city and stricter enforcement of City Ordinance 2526, is part of a comprehensive plan to control the animal population and vaccinate against rabies.
Through the CNVR program, which started in 2024, Cebu City aims to be rabies free by 2030.
Instead of putting stray dogs in an impounding facility, the CNVR program follows the following process:
• Catch: The DVMF personnel would catch dogs, prioritizing females to control the population. Utlang said about 93-97 percent of stray dogs have owners who allow them to roam in the streets.
• Neuter: DVMF personnel then conduct a physical exam on the dogs to check for any health issues. Female dogs are sprayed (the procedure in which the veterinarian makes an incision in the abdomen to remove the ovaries and uterus); while males are neutered (the removal of the testicles through an incision in front of the scrotum).
• Vaccinate: All dogs that have been caught will be vaccinated against rabies. Utlang said if 80 percent of dogs in a barangay are vaccinated, rabies cases in that area would surely either decline or be eliminated.
• Return: Utlang said the dogs will be returned to the area where they were caught around three to five days from the day of their surgeries.
From January to August 2025, a total of 829 dogs in Cebu City went through the CNVR process, leading to a 32 percent drop in rabies cases for the months of January to June this year compared to the same period last year.
A P5 million budget was given to the DVMF by the Cebu City Government to implement the program.
The CNVR approach is the City’s way to avoid impounding animals, especially dogs.
Utlang said when an animal is put in a pound, owners have three days to claim them before their pets are put up for adoption or euthanized, which she described as “cruel.”
She recalled a time when the city pound went viral on social media due to the sheer number of dogs that were left with no space to lie down.
“They piled up on top of each other until they died, and it was very dirty,” Utlang recounted.
“Impounding is not a solution. Anywhere in the world, there’s no place that achieved a rabies-free (status) because of impounding,” she added.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US national public health agency, dogs primarily contract the rabies virus through secreted saliva from an infected animal bite. It can also be transmitted if infected saliva contacts a scratch, open wound, or mucous membranes.
Once in the body, the virus travels along the nervous system to the brain, causing acute, progressive inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, which is almost always fatal once clinical signs appear.
Infected dogs typically display marked behavioral changes such as uncharacteristic aggression, fearfulness, or docility, along with excessive drooling, difficulty swallowing, staggering, paralysis, and seizures, with death usually occurring within days of symptom onset.
Meanwhile, humans primarily contract rabies through the bite of an infected animal, with the virus spreading via saliva that attacks the central nervous system.
Initial symptoms often include flu, fever, headache, and general discomfort, usually accompanied by a specific discomfort, prickling, itching, or neuropathic pain at the site of the bite.
As the disease progresses, severe neurological signs manifest, such as anxiety, confusion, agitation, delirium, hallucinations, insomnia, hydrophobia or fear of water, hypersalivation, difficulty swallowing, seizures, and partial paralysis.
The CDC said once these severe neurological symptoms appear, rabies is almost always fatal, with death typically occurring within days to weeks.
After the CNVR becomes the template, the goal is to put a microchip with tracker on all dogs and cats that are caught, before releasing them back to their territories.
The DVMF launched the microchipping of dogs in Barangay Basak Pardo on Sept. 4, 2025, with 55 dogs given trackers.
Rowena Reynoso, a pet owner in Basak Pardo who availed of the program for her five-year-old dog, Bruno, said the initiative is a great help.
“Through this program, it can be monitored if dogs are already vaccinated,” said Reynoso.
Vanessa Nicolas, a fur mom of two dogs, said microchipping at the barangay level entices pet owners to avail of the service, making it “hassle-free” and “affordable.”
Utlang said Basak Pardo was chosen as the pilot barangay for the microchipping since they are the most active barangays when it comes to the house-to-house vaccination and pet registration.
DVMF is looking at Barangay Kamputhaw as the next barangay to conduct the microchipping initiative.
Paw Nec founder and chief executive officer Arrian Lim, DVMF’s microchips and tracker supplier, said the microchips and tracker are connected to a software where pet owners can create their pet’s identification and vaccination record.
“When you scan the pet’s ID, you will only see the pet’s info, you will not see the pet’s owner’s name, address, no personal data,” Lim assured.
He said the only time the owner’s personal information is made visible upon scanning is when the pet has been tagged as missing.
Lim said the technology can help control rabies as it can locate where the virus originated or where it spread.
“When you try to vaccinate the pet population, you’re trying to contain the spread of infectious diseases like rabies, so it’s important for you to identify the who, where, and when, because location is also a factor of spreading infectious diseases.”
Paw Nec founder and chief executive officer Arrian Lim
Utlang said there had been instances when owners do not admit that their pets had bitten someone. With the microchip and tracker, authorities can trace the owner and the dog’s location.
Pet owners who wish to avail of microchipping from the DVMF have to pay P200 which is much cheaper than getting the service from private providers at around P1,000, said Utlang.
Upon installation, owners have to bring proof that their pets have been vaccinated. There is a form online that they need to fill in with a one-time password.
The DVMF personnel will then proceed to install the microchip with tracker to the dogs. Utlang said pet owners who wish to bring cats with them can do so; however, microchip for cats will not include a tracker as rabies cases in the city have only been from dog bites.
The anchor of all the initiatives being implemented by the DVMF is City Ordinance 2526 or the Animal Welfare Ordinance of 2019.
Utlang said intensified measures to control rabies and animal bites are part of the DVMF’s stricter implementation of the ordinance.
Since Sept. 1, 2025, the DVMF, in coordination with barangays, has been conducting house-to-house operations to issue tickets to pet owners who have not registered their animals during the registration period from January to July.
A P200 fee is charged for pet registration which already includes free spaying or neutering.
Barangays Apas, Basak Pardo, Lahug, Busay, and Guba which had positive cases of rabies since start of the year, were the first to penalize pet owners.
Other barangays that have animal bite cases but have no rabies cases, will start penalizing erring pet owners by November.
Under the ordinance, pet owners who fail to register their pets will be penalized with P2,000 per pet, or three to six months of imprisonment. Pet owners are given five days to pay their penalties; otherwise, the DVMF will forward the case to the City Legal Office for legal action.
Utlang said the goal cannot be done by the City alone as it needs the cooperation of all the barangays and pet owners to succeed.