We had our second course with Prof Jason Yeh at Taipei Animal Shelter. The course is about stray dogs ecology. We learn about the usefulness of dogs, the impact of free roaming dogs, the causes of stray dogs, and the effective solutions to the problem.
Dogs have been working with human since more than a millenium ago. Dogs are originally from the wild but they're brought into the human community when human realize the usefulness of dogs. Dogs are usually used for hunting and guarding in the past, but now they're also used for guiding, investigation, therapy, performance and also gambling.
Many people also take dogs as pets.
But dogs are not only pets, they are the great companion and men's best friends. Gradually people treat dogs as part of the family.
Dogs are also used in some scientific research. However there are also some inhumane scientist used dogs in their nuisance experiments that cause suffering to dogs.
Free roaming dogs cause garbage littering and polution that leads to city image problem.
Stray dogs roaming on the street causes traffic hazard.
Stray dogs become wild and aggressive to protect themselves and to find food for survival. They might attack people who provoke them.
The problem of stray dogs cuases the reproduction of second generations stray puppies, which makes the situation more difficult to be controlled. The problem of stray dogs may also cause the transmission of disease such as rabies.
The problem of stray dogs causes the shelter to be overpopulated.
The stray dogs problem are actually caused by irresponsible people who abandon their dogs or let their dogs roam freely on the street. Dogs are abandoned by their irresponsible owners because of the poor bonding between the pet and the owner, such as in the situation of job change, marriage, divorce, child allergy and high medical fees for ill dog, which cause burden to the owner. Mischievous pets sneak out of home may get themselves lost outside and become stray dogs when they cannot find their way back home. It is the owners' responsibility to ensure the safety of the pets.
Owners are advised to implant the microchip into their pets for identification. When the animal rescue team finds a stray dog, they use multireader to scan the microchip to trace the serial code of the dog, and then search for the dog's owner particulars in the database, so that they could contact the owner.
If the owner abadon the dog by purpose and do not reclaim the dog, the irresposible owner will be fined NTD 15,000. If microchip could not be detected, the dog will be kept in the animal shelter for 12 days before determining whether to perform euthanasia to the dog. Dogs, cats and rabbits in the shelter are also put up for adoption.
Animal welfare and protection agencies are promoting TNR (trap, neuter and relase) to curb the stray dogs problem. Stray cats and dogs have to be sterilized to avoid overpopulation of second generation of strays animals.
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