What a street survey can and cannot say about coverage
Why 'percentage sterilised' needs a census, unique identification and a boundary before it means anything.
Programmes are often asked for one number: what share of a ward's dogs are sterilised. A street survey that counts ear-notched dogs gives a proportion of the dogs seen, not of the dogs that live there.
What a coverage figure needs
- A defined boundary, walked completely
- A count method that is repeated the same way each time
- Unique identification, so an animal is not counted twice
- A stated date and time window
How StrayPaw reports it
StrayPaw reports a marked proportion of recorded observations, with its method and limits written next to it, and only calls it coverage when a complete census has been documented.