Little Mountain Dog Project

Kilung Monastery’s dogs have been transformed. A straightforward program of feeding, neutering, and deworming has solved their former problems, common to monastery dogs throughout Tibet.

Canine friend, Lila Kate Wheeler visited Kilung Monastery in 2004, and fell in love with one of the monastery puppies, naming her Little Mountain. Lila then spearheaded this Kilung Foundation initiative for the dogs. At the time, they were so underfed that many died during the winter, and often mothers were forced to eat their own offspring. So, feeding the dogs was the first order of business, which, in a short amount of time, also transformed the ferocity of the dogs. The now-healthy dogs continue to do their job as monastery guards, but appropriately.

It was later discovered that the dogs carried a parasitic disease, the hydatid tapeworm, which infects more Dzachuka humans per capita than almost anywhere in the world. The dogs now receive worm medicine four times a year through the Little Mountain Dog Project. Together with a public health campaign, this should significantly decrease the incidence of humans contracting this life-threatening disease.

Naturally, the happy and healthy dog population began to multiply.

A Tibetan expert spayed all the monastery dogs in 2007 and 2011 with no loss of life, and the population has stabilized to acceptable levels.