Meycauayan City introduced Pawnec’s vet-connected pet ID and eHealth Card technology less than two weeks ago, yet nearly 1,500 pets have already registered for mass rabies vaccination, microchipping, and ID tagging.

The pre-vaccination phase lasted seven days, allowing pet owners to remotely register their pets with the government from the comfort of their homes through Pawnec’s smart pet ID. With just a few taps and swipes, pet owners could give their pets access to essential veterinary services at their local government veterinary clinic.

From the analytics gathered through the downloadable eHealth Card that comes with the vet-connected pet ID, we can confidently expect Meycauayan to register its entire pet population in less than 18 weeks. A dramatic process-flow improvement that has faced backlogs as far back as 2022 in other cities and municipalities. Outdated onsite paper-based registration takes about five to seven minutes per pet, excluding travel time and waiting lines, especially when lines are long. The repetitive process of writing vaccination proof on a vaccine card and encoding illegible handwritten documents into the city’s and the Bureau of Animal Industry’s rabies vaccination records takes another five to seven minutes per pet.

With Pawnec’s Jab, Scan, and Go system at the vaccination site, recording a pet’s rabies vaccine takes only about 30 to 45 seconds, as quick as paying in Gcash—and I emphasize, this faster process ensures records are secure from tampering and lost critical pet health information.

A Heartwarming Scene of Bayanihan

A cat in a crate and five others sharing a cage wait their turn for rabies shots in Brgy. Bayugo

On the second day of mass rabies vaccination, I saw a touching scene: several cats being carried in a pet crate by a sweaty, exhausted cat owner to the covered basketball court of Brgy. Bayugo. I noticed because of the admirable effort of the owner. Minutes later, I saw another crate of cats being taken to the court, each taking turns for an anti-rabies shot. This pattern repeated for several rounds.

LGU veterinarians usually bring their rabies vaccination efforts to the barangay center to make pet care services more accessible to residents. While some LGU veterinarians with more staff and volunteers occasionally vaccinate directly at pet owners’ homes, resources are limited in many cities and municipalities, which often have to set up makeshift outdoor vaccination sites in each barangay. Pet owners just need to leash their dogs and walk to the vaccination site a few blocks away.

Rabies vaccination has never been easier! Your dog is vaccinated for free just by walking it outside like their daily routine. But as any cat owner can attest, it’s still not as easy as that.

Dogs in collars and leashes with their owners waiting in line for their rabies vaccination

Rabies vaccination has never been easier! Your dog is vaccinated for free just by walking it outside like their daily routine. But as any cat owner can attest, it’s still not as easy as that.

The cats in the crates I saw weren’t just a story of effort; they’re a story of bayanihan—that is, community teamwork—where neighbors take turns borrowing crates. I remember the rust at the bottom of one blue crate and saw it come back repeatedly with different cats inside. I thought: “Wow! They may not afford their own crates, but they’re doing their best to vaccinate their cats responsibly.”

Years’ worth of research in a week’s time

LGU vets know cats are harder to transport blocks away for vaccination. They’ve seen makeshift crates from fan steel covers, teenagers struggling to carry cats to the vaccination site, only for the cats to panic and run away in crowded spaces as soon as it’s put on the ground.

Pet Pulse Insights in Brgy. Bayugo, Meycauayan City highlighting the drop in the participation of cats in the recent mass rabies vaccination

What my story highlights are vaccination trends previously hard to measure. It digs deeper into our kababayan’s plight. Thirty-seven percent of registered pets were cats. Despite this, after outreach in Brgy. Bayugo, Perez, and other barangays, Pet Pulse showed only 29% of vaccinated pets were cats—most were dogs.

What does this imply?

Many residents want their cats vaccinated but find it tough to bring them to vaccination sites. Walking a dog is easy, but finding suitable crates for cats remains a challenge, and free of charge rabies vaccination and barangay-to-barangay outreach haven’t fully addressed that.

When I was at the vaccination drive, it was clear more owners brought dogs—they came prepared with collars, leashes, and cages. Most dog owners brought one or two dogs, while cat owners, often with up to five cats, carried them in only a single cage. Pet owners who pre-registered cats but lacked carriers likely decided not to come due to transport difficulties.

Insights from Pet Pulse suggest that, although some cats are brought to vaccination sites, many are left at home. Because of the immediate access of veterinarians to our real-world clinical data, there are already discussions on how to use this data-supported anecdote in guiding their next pet care and public health strategies.

Currently, Meycauayan City’s Veterinary Office continues vaccination efforts in other barangays, still using Pawnec’s vet-connected pet ID and eHealth Card system. The veterinary team finds this new technology very efficient for documenting pet health info and reaching more pet owners quickly, which is why they keep using it beyond initial outreach.

The key message: over a thousand pets were registered in just one week, without long lines or paper forms, backed up by years’ worth of clinical insights. Responsible pet ownership and public health can advance faster, smarter, and more inclusively by embracing a practical technology brought directly to where pet care happens—outdoor vaccination sites, and not on a veterinarian’s desk.