## 4 Discussion  
The combination of the dog demography questionnaire, KAP survey, and street survey was able to expose a detailed picture of the dogs and owners living in this community in Bali. Taking the approach of a complete census with individual dogs as the sample unit (as opposed to households) in which all dogs living within the community were included in the dog demography questionnaire was time-consuming. It took one year for all three _desas_ to be studied by a team of approximately 10 people. However, this intensive approach yielded two benefits: (1) The opportunity to meet all dog owners and carers in the community and identify those that required follow-up support such as vaccination or sterilisation services; and (2) the census of all dogs allowed for estimating the total owned (5809; 96.7%) and unowned (200; 3.3%) dog population. This differs from an earlier study in Bali [12] and another on Lombok (a neighbouring Indonesian island)[17], where questionnaires on dog demography were carried out using households as the sampling unit and did not include unowned dogs. Although observations of free roaming dogs were also conducted in these studies, the composition of owned roaming and unowned dogs in these free-roaming populations was not calculable [12; 17]. Although every effort was made to identify every dog in all three _desas_, it is feasible that some dogs were missed from the census and these would potentially be biased towards unowned dogs as there was no referral household to report their existence. However the proportion of unowned dogs found is higher than a previous census study conducted in two other _desas_ in Bali which identified between 1.1 and 1.5% unowned dogs [18], giving confidence that few if any unowned dogs were missed. Because the dog demography questionnaire provided an estimate of the total owned and unowned dog population, the method employed for the street survey focused on establishing baselines for roaming dog density per km of street surveyed [15]. This method requires fewer resources to complete  
Figure 15: The number of roaming dogs per km of street surveyed is shown for each _banjar_. The three icons represent the density on each of the three replicate surveys along the same _banjar_ route; blue diamond on day 1, green triangle on day 2, and red cross on day 3.  
as compared to mark-resight methods that aim to produce an estimate of the abundance of roaming dogs [19; 20]. Hence, it can be repeated more frequently to monitor change in the roaming dog density over time and in response to any intervention. By monitoring roaming dog density, we do not wish to imply that the presence of roaming dogs precludes effective rabies control. On the contrary, it can be hypothesised that the presence of vaccinated roaming dogs may act as a barrier to the movement of symptomatic rabid dogs through a _banjar_, as these rabid dogs may elicit defensive or territorial aggression in resident dogs. Although we are not aware of objective testing of such a hypothesis, this could provide an example mechanism for the concept of \"the vaccinated dog (as) the soldier in the fight against rabies\" [21] (p. 4). However, roaming behaviour of owned dogs can be used as an indicator of responsible ownership, as greater food provisioning by owners and reduction in oestrus females through sterilisation should reduce motivations for roaming. The average density of dogs observed in this Balinese community (3.81 dogs per km of street surveyed) was similar to that seen in communities in Latin America and Europe, but lower than the density observed in Kathmandu, Nepal [15]. The variation in the density of dogs observed on the same route, but on consecutive days, was relatively low suggesting, that this will provide a sensitive indicator to any changes in dog density over time. The results of the dog demography questionnaire can be compared to similar studies of dog populations in Bali [12; 18] and in Lombok [17]. That females represent a minority of owned dogs was consistent across all four studies.