A bed of thorns, Part Two

Ref: http://animalcare.my/2012/02/28/a-bed-of-thorns/

Updates on 29th Feb, at 8.00am:

These two applicants are not from the Klang Valley, so it had been rather difficult for me to get the resources to check out their “shelters” and what they do. But as luck would have it, someone wrote to me last night with more news about this “hoarder”. YES, she IS a hoarder. Apparently, it is not due to ignorance, but plain stubbornness (the “I know what I am doing, so don’t you tell me what to do” attitude). She had been told repeatedly that she must vaccinate her animals, but she doesn’t do it. Her sick animals are finally brought to the vet, but most of the time, it would be too late to save them. She tells everyone how kind she is to animals to gain sympathy and get help, but she is actually doing more harm by keeping all her animals in a most irresponsible and inappropriate way.

I now doubt she would take up my offer of getting her animals vaccinated and spayed-neutered since many people have urged her to do, and she plainly refuses.

So, yes, we need stricter laws in our country to protect our animals from such people.

And she is not the only one. I know of at least two others in the Klang Valley whom we’ve helped before. We only helped ONCE (because we did not know exactly what they did), and once we found out, they were already on our blacklist. One refuses to spay-neuter all her animals (despite our offer to do it for free) and refuses to get them rehomed; another neglects all his sick animals until they die a slow death.

We visited one of these places and my heart dropped when I saw the animals – they were confined in cages and looked absolutely forlorn; they were pleading for help. When I offered to rehome some of her animals for her, she refused, citing no one would be able to look after these animals as well as she does! How well can an animal be when it is not spayed-neutered and it is confined in a small cage all her/his life? And when it is the mating season, the animals go berserk. There is no socialisation; it is worse than being in prison.

WHY do people do such things? Just leave the animals on the streets and they may be better off than being confined and under the mercy of totally irresponsible, ill-informed and “holier-than-thou” so-called rescuers!

After encountering two such “shelter people” this week, I’m getting help from a shelter manager to draw up a list of guidelines for people who wish to run small shelters but may not have any know-how.

This is the very least I can do, for the sake of all these animals that they bring in from the streets into their “shelters”. Please, learn to run a shelter the proper way and not let the poor animals suffer due to our ignorance.

One of our main missions is to educate, and educate, we will.

But one can only bring the horse to its water trough; one cannot force the horse to drink.

We need stricter legislation for stubborn “horses”.