Day 7: Taipei Animal Shelter 2

Mr Liu prepared his award-winning "东坡肉" for breakfast today. He'll be opening his new restaurant at the end of this month at Xihu.

Here again at the Taipei Animal Shelter. We thought that we will have a course today. Waited for 2 hours in the room playing with the little parrot, then we were told that we're supposed to do our internship at the shelter. Since the officers at the shelter do not have any jobs for us, we just helped to carry the dead bodies of dogs to the freezer and had a guided tour.

I learnt to hold the bird, but still afraid of putting it on my shoulder. The little parrot kept walking around on the table, and then rest on Arkka's shoulder when it was tired. Most of them fell asleep in the room while waiting. Little parrot had finally found its most comfortable shoulder to be its home. It slept on Henry's shoulder.

Finally all the interns for this internship had arrived. Made another 2 friends again, Bato from Russia, and Vitzy from Mexico. We showed coins and notes from our own home country and exchanged a few coins.

Wow~ $100,000! Holding such a big note for the first time. It would be so good if it is RM100,000 or sterling pounds.

In the shelter introduction session, we learnt about the responsibility and the work flow of the animal rescue team. They are doing a pretty good job in curbing stray animals. I can hardly see a stray. Dogs are kept in clean cages, but they do not have ample space to run around, they're just like in prison although they have enough water and food, shelter and protection, but because of space and cost constraint, they do not have the freedom.

The shelter has been doing catch-sterilize-release to reduce the number of stray animals, because dogs and cats can reproduce very quickly and especially cats survival rate is very high, they could multiply very quickly forming a huge uncontrollable colony. Spay and neuter is definitely the best solution.

After the brief introduction and tour, we were allowed to walk the dogs. Of course i chose my favourite dog, Kopi. She's very active and clever.

I saw a handicapped dog, using a dog's special wheel chair. I wonder do we have it in Malaysia. I hope they do, and hope Malaysian will care more about animal welfare, even if they're sick or handicapped. Every lives deserves to live.