Maneki Neko (with the help of her human companion, Amanda) wrote this:
As with so many decisions, I think in the end we all try to find the one that is the lesser of two evils.
For people trying to re-home animals, the question of aethetics may come into play. I do think, though, that if a rescuer explains to a potential adopter the REASON for the snipped ear, most adopters will accept that a small snip in the ear is better than running the risk of sending the animal into surgery more than once. If a potential adopter turns away from any animal with a snipped ear after hearing the explanation, I would have to give that person a second thought. Does s/he really love animals?
I certainly want to see as many animals as possible in good, loving homes, and I know what a challenge that is. I still think, though, that the benefit of a small ear snip outweighs the harm. We just have to do a little more talking to convince others that it’s a good thing. 🙂
Thanks, Maneki and Amanda. Singaporeans are educated to accept this. They even bring their pets in for notching. We need a bit of time to learn, but if we’re willing, we can learn, can’t we?
The thing is, I had posted an invitation to “vote” 5 days ago: http://animalcare.my/2011/04/should-we-tip-ears-of-all-spayed.html (on whether we should tip the ears or not). Two years ago, my friends (who are very experienced in this field) had already advised me to implement the ear-tipping/notching right from Day One, and we actually did, but after some time, we did not insist upon it and the thing kind of died off. We also did not encounter a case of an animal being opened up twice so I didn’t see a need in doing it. Our government authorities also have not agreed to releasing a tipped-ear animal if captured.
This revival of the ear-tipping requirement came about when one of our panel clinics, now taken over by a new management and a new owner-cum-vet, insisted upon ear-tipping for all CNRM cases and for good reasons too. Then, Cocker got opened up twice and that just reinforced the need to implement it. All our vets agreed too.
So I put it out to vote in the posting published early Saturday morning (9th April).
I received 7 affirmative votes in the blog posting and several personal emails and all had said “yes”. So, it’s through consultation with the readers that we collectively decided we would do it. There were absolutely no objections at all.
FOUR days. That’s 96 hours of deciding which way you want to vote – yes or no.
And now…the objection comes.
The Malaysian way?
P.S. Even the General Election only allows one day to vote! Sarawak, maybe two!