wild places | wild happenings | wild news
make a difference for our wild places

home | links | search the site
  all articles latest | past | articles by topics | search wildnews
wild news on wildsingapore
  Today Online 28 Nov 05
Certify pet 'lovers'
Offer compulsory petcare workshops for new owners to reduce ill treatment or abandonment of pets There are many animal lovers who truly love their pets, but there are a great deal more ignorant pet owners who only think they love animals.

I have two dogs -- I bought the first one and adopted the second. When I bought my dog, the pet shop did not educate buyers about the pros and cons of ownership. They just reminded me about the vaccinations and not to expose it to the outdoors as it was only six weeks old. Getting me to buy unnecessary accessories for my pet seemed to be the priority.
My nightmare started from the time I brought it home. It needed to be toilet trained, which is not as simple as it sounds. It took five months and lots of patience. Then came the teething. We bought lots of teething toys and sprayed our furniture with anti-biting chemicals, but even so our four carpets, two sofa sets, 43" projector screen TV, dining set and half of our curtains--more than $20,000 worth of furniture--were ruined.

When it was six months old, we took him to obedience class--eight weeks of torture, mostly for the handler. We also needed to socialise our dog, which required two walks a day and every weekend we went to the dog run.

That's where we met our second dog. The owner wanted to give her up and so we took her in. She was underfed and had many wounds. I was told the dog was kept on the service balcony 24 hours a day, rain or shine. She drooled all the time. The owner said it was due to anxiety.

Today she is well-fed, her wounds have healed and she has stopped drooling. Her place in my home is the master bedroom and she is now a happy beagle.

So, you can see the amount of time and money invested in my dogs is not for the faint-hearted. That is why I would like to advocate a compulsory certificate of attendance at a petcare workship, before one can purchase a pet.

It's not easy to get potential pet buyers to attend such a talk. But if you love your pet, what's one to two hours learning about pet care, compared to a lifetime of responsibility?

Let's penalise pet shops if they sell a pet without the certificate. It's about time we have some form of regulation, to reduce pet abandonment.
links
Related articles on Singapore: animal release including pets and animal abuse
about the site | email ria
  News articles are reproduced for non-profit educational purposes.
 

website©ria tan 2003 www.wildsingapore.com