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  Straits Times Forum Online 21 Jan 06
In the Year of the Dog: Be good to our canine friends
Letter from Dr Tan Chek Wee

LAST week, a friend of mine found a 'stray' puppy lying in a pool of stale blood beside a tractor. One of its hind legs was so badly crushed that the mangled part was just dangling by shreds of skin. It died at a vet's clinic later that night. Two weeks ago, another friend of mine 'adopted' an eight-year-old male poodle which was confined by a leash to a small area of the kitchen. His drinking water was restricted so that he would not mess up the kitchen with 'too much urine'.

The poodle has since gone through a groomer to remove years of severely tangled fur and also through the vet for sterilisation. His hyperactive behaviour due to years of 'frustrated imprisonment' will require a period of rehabilitation.

As we move into the Lunar Year of the Dog, let us do something good for our canine friends. Let us stop the endless supply of strays and abandoned dogs for killing.

Let us try a different method that has proven workable in metropolitan cities such as New York: trap the strays in an island-wide programme, to sterilise them instead of to put them down. Let the strays live out their natural lives and let no more puppies be born to suffer.

Let us accord as much importance to the adoption of a dog or puppy as the adoption of a child. Adopters are guardians who have to understand that a dog's welfare is totally dependent on them. Adoption of a puppy or dog should be more than just simply paying a fee at the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA).

Abandonment is an acute problem. I support AVA's emphasis on 'responsible pet ownership' education but it takes a long time for results to be seen. Let us apply the brakes on supply - restrict imports, restrict breeding and restrict the sale of puppies and dogs in pet shops. There are ample local dogs, puppies and rescued pedigree dogs in shelters to meet the needs of genuine adopters.

Perhaps I have a vested interest in my repeated calls for us to treat animals with compassion. We teach compassion to the young by how we treat the 'down and out'. I am one of the baby boomers moving rapidly into the greying years. One day, I, too, will be 'down and out' and become an 'economic burden'. When that day comes, I hope the young have not become too callous to care for me with compassion.

Milan Kundera, one of the most important contemporary Czech writers, wrote in his book, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being: 'True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from the view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.'

Dr Tan Chek Wee
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