The plight of strays

Both of them vie to sit in front, ALL THE TIME

 Before we adopted Zeus, or Honey, we were looking through the classifieds online - PetsChannel, Locanto, and the works. There were some pets for adoption, and some pets for sale. We considered both of them and even wanted to buy a puppy from a dubious breeder who will only promise to deliver the puppy to you upon a certain price.

We only looked and pictures and temperament, and eagerly pointed out to each other which dogs were cute. Of course Zeus was one of them, which was why we ended up adopting him.

As for Honey, the only thing we considered was if she would make a good companion for Zeus, and her toilet training of course.

That was before we knew about the sorry state of animals in Singapore.

Animals being abused, dumped, mistreated, given up, flung out of car windows at industrial estates, and left at pet shops. The stories horrified us when we started volunteering with animal welfare organisations, and seeing all the caged up strays with nowhere to go saddens us.

One night, we went along to a stay feeding session and spent about 3 - 4 hours driving around looking for groups of stray dogs. The volunteers we went with knew almost every stray and their history. Their stories sadden us, and we could only look on and wonder why are pet owners in Singapore so cruel to their pets. There's nothing we can do to help, save for feeding and looking after the strays. They breed and multiply if we can't catch & sterilise them. Most of them are quite wary of humans. We don't wonder why.

Of course, it's Singapore policies that cause strays their plight. There are no strict regulations for sterilisation. Animal abuse, while proclaimed to be not taken lightly, seems to slip by the authorities with little or no intervention from them. There's no import control either. Huskies continue to be imported even though the Singapore climate is not suitable for them. In the end, many of them end up at shelters, or become abandoned. AVA only seems to care about making money, not helping animals. This is evident from their killing of animals, and release only upon a hefty sum of $500. Who has to pay this? All the Non Profit Organisations, who don't have much money in the first place.

If we knew about this earlier, perhaps we wouldn't have adopted Honey and Zeus. After all, we would have been a lot more helpful fostering animals who are in danger and critical conditions. These are the ones who really need our love and care.

Not to say we do not love Honey and Zeus, but being cute dogs, they would probably stand a higher chance of getting adopted by good families.

Just thinking.