Going overboard is sometimes not wise

I received an SOS two days ago. It seems this lady had bought a bungalow lot in the outskirts of KL and had spent money to convert it into a sanctuary for dogs. I have heard of this plan by another person before and my first reaction was, “Isn’t this breaking the law? Are you allowed to build a sanctuary in a housing estate?” And the answer I received was that it is ok because “nobody bothers” or, “nobody will find out”.

Well, now, this lady has been given one week’s notice to evict. And she has more than 20 dogs to rehome now and is frantically looking for homes. She asked me if LLLF is willing to take the dogs, and I said I do not know. But I gave her the contact number and said she could try. Even I took 1 1/2 months to negotiate for the 13 places for the Ketam dogs from SPCA, and we are supplying food for as long as we can now, hopefully for the entire duration of the dogs’ natural lives.

LLLF is also very short-handed because there is only one staff cooking for and looking after the welfare of the dogs. I hope people will not use LLLF as a convenient place to “dump” (sorry, but I cannot find a better word to use here) dogs irresponsibly. LLLF is also running on donations and they are very short-handed.

I tried to negotiate a place for Abby at LLLF too, but they said they cannot handle an old dog who might need veterinary treatment. I have to respect their decision.

My point is, in our fervour to rescue animals, it may not be wise to go overboard or worse, to break the law.

Do whatever we can, within our means, but please do not break the law and get ourselves into trouble. Ultimately, the animals suffer because of our ignorance and folly.

There is also another matter which I fail to understand. It is how some shelters operate. They keep accepting stray animals from the public, but to make space, they euthanise their existing animals. Then, they justify to say that there is overcrowding so, they have no choice but to do this.

This is like an orphanage that keeps accepting new orphans but euthanise (ie. kill) their existing orphans so that there is space to accept new ones.

Doesn’t sound right, does it? If it doesn’t sound right for humans, it also should not sound right for animals.

My question is, can’t they stop accepting strays if they have no more space? Just tell the public that there is no more space and people would have to stop dumping the strays at their shelter. Then, work on adoption drives and get the existing animals adopted to make space for new ones.

I may be wrong, but I hear horrible stories of how mothers and their entire litter of newborns are euthanised at the shelters, sometimes just after two days of squating at the shelter. Or, how babies and elderlies are the first to be killed when they need to make space. How could anyone have the heart to kill innocent babies and elderly animals who are perfectly healthy…? I cannot understand this, especially when these are people who are in the business of animal welfare.

A “shelter” is a place where the animals are supposed to feel save in. It should not be a killing ground.

Instead of being sent to a shelter and face the (high) possibility of being euthanised, these animals may actually have a better chance of survival out there on the street.

Killing is not the answer to solve the problem of stray animals. Killing is not the answer to solve ANY problem.

CNRM is the long-term solution to the stray problem. Please let’s do our part. Support us in spaying and neutering the stray animals. For every animal that we spay/neuter, we are already preventing thousands of unwanted births.

But of course, these are just my thoughts.