Table 4.

Participants’ knowledge and perceptions of suggested CE control measures: pros and cons

Rank	Perceived acceptable control measures		Perceived non-acceptable control measures
	Measure	Advantages	Measure	Obstacles
1	Kill stray dogs only	Help eliminate dogs and their threats	Replace sheep with goats	Against the culture (food habits, religion); many disadvantages of goat herding
2	Stop feeding dogs with sheep cysts	Contribute to decreasing the disease	Kill all dogs	Some dogs have a role (useful) and the right to live (have a soul)
3	Feeding dogs personally	Prevent dogs going out to look for their food and returning with diseases	Stop feeding dogs with sheep cysts	Cysts can be found anywhere else (souk, slaughterhouses)
4	Prevention versus treatmenta	More efficient than treatment	Feeding dogs yourself	Impossible to educate a dog (big appetite)
5	Kill all dogs	Fewer problems	Kill stray dogs only	Dogs always reappear (reproduction difficult to control) especially if culling campaigns are not carried out regularly
6	Bury infected offal	Prevent dogs’ access to offal	No more owning dogs	Dogs are needed
7	Stop owning dogs	Not specified	Do not throw away carcases	Too costly and time consuming to bury them
8	Stop throwing away carcasses	Avoid the bad smell	Bury wasted offal	Dogs have a strong sense of smell and offal is not buried deep enough
9	Replace sheep with goats	Healthier meat with fewer cysts found (less contacts with dogs)	Burn infected offal	Too costly
10	Burn infected offal	Prevent dogs having access to offal and people having to retrieve them Avoid bad smell	Reduce dogs’ access to slaughterhousesb	Not the best method to control the disease because it does not come from the slaughterhouse but from the pastures

^aControl measures suggested only to men, women and student groups

^bControl measure suggested only to the butchers