This is a follow-up to this post: https://animalcare.my/2023/12/07/tips-on-keeping-our-cnrm-colony-as-safe-as-possible/
I received an update from the person who asked for help for their captured dogs two days ago. Sadly and most disappointingly, they had decided not to retrieve their dogs from the pound. And this is despite the help that I had sought for them – to get someone from that town who was willing to help them get their dogs back.
And why? What is their reason for not wanting to get their dogs back? Their reason was that “the dogs will only be recaptured again”.
What??
How on earth do you know that your dogs will only be recaptured? And even so, can’t you make the necessary arrangements to safeguard your dogs temporarily until the heat cools down?
And shouldn’t the priority be rescuing those poor dogs out of the pound first??
I was really disappointed to hear their decision and I feel very sorry for the poor dogs. Everyone knows that pound animals only have a few days’ grace period to live and they will be destroyed.
How can ANY caregiver refuse to rescue their captured dogs from the pound, knowing exactly where the dogs have been taken?
We often received requests for help when street animals have been captured and the feeders are desperately looking for them from pound to pound, not even knowing which council had taken their animals.
And here we have this person who knows exactly where their dogs have been taken and yet, they don’t want to take back their dogs, despite having someone on standby to help them. And I was also told that this person actually expects the council to send their dogs back to them. Well, that isn’t going to happen, is it?
So in doing our work, we do come across all kinds of caregivers. Most of them are total strangers, and we always give them the benefit of the doubt and do our best to help them and their animals.
Once help is offered, the ball is in their court. If they aren’t willing to even lift a finger to help themselves or their animals, we can only send our best wishes to their animals and hope for the best.
Those who aren’t willing to lift a finger perhaps should not be animal caregivers anymore.
To these people, we have this to say: When you decide to care for street animals, please know that it is your regular feeding that attracts the animals to your colony and they stay there and come back to your colony because of the food (and we hope, the love and care). Then, it becomes your responsibility to actually CARE for the animals.
If you had not started feeding, the animals would have migrated elsewhere. Please know this.
So when your animals are captured, please know that it is YOUR responsibility to get them back safely. Because you are the one who gave them the confidence to stay in your colony in the first place.
