NEWSLETTER Vol. XVIII May-Oct 2004

Editorial

International Homeless Animal Day at UPM Serdang

High Fibre Diet essential for good bunny care

If a dog had beenyour teacher

International Homeless Animal Day at UPM Serdang

SPCA held talks and a candle-lit vigil in conjunction with International Homeless Animal Day on 21 August 2004.

The event began with the introduction of “NO-KILL”, an international movement initiated by animal welfare organisations that believe owners should be responsible for neutering pets. This is to prevent over-population and hence lower the number of euthanasia.

The talks covered cat welfare, cruelty & law enforcement, licensing & responsible pet ownership and humane killing. At the end of the talks, a candle was lit for every animal they put to sleep to commemorate the 12,000 cats and dogs euthanised by SPCA in the past year.

The event was supported by MNAWF, UPM, MEWS, Feline Society, DVS and DBKL.

The problem of abandoned or unwanted animals goes beyond borders. This article dated last year takes a closer look at Guam's stray animal population problem.

Protecting Our Planet – Treating the World's Homeless Pets
By Fredalynn Mortera Hecita, KUAM News

http://www.kuam.com/news

Millions of unwanted homeless pets are born in our country each year. These poor animals are victims of human neglect, carelessness or bad judgement.

Alone, frightened, hungry and out on the street stray dogs can be seen throughout the island. Guam Animals In Need (GAIN) board member Russell Tufvander says thousands of unwanted pets are increasing each year because of uncontrolled breeding of pets. He said, “they'll continue to have one as long as we have irresponsible breeding of dogs and cats. People don't take the time to spay and neuter.”

A partial solution to the island's stray problem is animal round ups. Unfortunately, it is the dogs that are caught, and it is difficult to determine who their owners are unless they come forward to claim their pets. Russell added, “I know when they have round ups we can have fifty to a hundred dogs come in a week. But a lot of those are simply just people's pets that were running loose. But there are a lot of strays and people keep adding to the problem.”

Stray animals rarely survive for very long on their own because they can be exposed to a number of fatal diseases. That's a serious problem. We've got rampant mange, that's when they loose their hair. We've got parvo, feline leukemia; all of those are caused by having too many animals loose, not getting proper vet care. Also, if we ever do get a rabid dog loose on this island its going to spread like wild fire because of all the stray animals," he added.

Tufvander says there are several steps we can take to prevent the proliferation of stray animals. “First, we need to educate the people as to the necessity, right now it's somebody else's problem. Second, we need to spay and neuter as many as possible. Sterilise the animals that are not reproducing. Third, we need round ups and we need a budget. Have some aggressive round ups,” he said.

Supporting spaying and neutering programs can make an incredible difference in reducing the number of animals being impounded by 30-60%. Said Tufvander, “we just did over 400 animals in the last clinic. We've done over 1,300, almost 1,400 over the clinics we had the last three years. It's a start, it's just a start but it is a start. It does reduce the breeding population.”

Until we realise that every animal carelessly allowed to come into the world contributes to the overpopulation of strays, more unwanted puppies and kittens will suffer and die. Russell said, “right now, the Guam community in Guam as a whole decided to have a stray pet population because we don't have people taking the steps to sterilise their pets. Until people sterilise aggressively we'll continue to have a problem.”

Spaying or neutering your pets is one of the most responsible things a pet owner can do. Every year over five million pets are euthanised due to over population.

Pet Care
Source:
www.bluecross.org.uk
www.allaboutpets.org.uk
Information taken from their All About Pets leaflet ‘Caring for your Hamster’.
— Sent in for us by member Laura Yap