Sharing a dog's life: public policies and canine visceral leishmaniasis

Abstract

This paper brings some introductory lines to analyze public policies for
Canine Visceral Leishmaniasis. Based on the case of Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil, we tried
to show that there is a silencing of canine suffering in the evidence that public policies
for Leishmaniasis start to be constituted only when the disease threatens human lives.
Likewise, we show how policies of coexistence are produced and experienced much
more by civil initiatives - almost always marginalized and even against public policies thought and executed by the government, when certain populations of dogs and humans are neglected by the public power.