A new reason to get rid of a pet
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Why animal pounds are being forced to take in "disposable" dogs even when they cannot provide adequate overnight care
WHEN I first see the black dog in one of today’s photos, I notice how scruffy he looks. He also seems rather confused but hopeful, and it looks as if he has a skin disease on his back leg, or at least a wound that hasn’t healed.
Then I look more closely and see one sparkly eye gazing at the camera. I don’t see the dog’s other eye.
In this way, I am introduced to the latest trend of people getting rid of unwanted dogs.
For years, people with the money or connections have been buying dog breeds that for some reason have become popular. Movies featuring Dalmatians, St Bernards, Siberian huskies, poodles, Jack Russells, cocker spaniels, golden retrievers or Labradors have popularised all these breeds.
Some people, however, become bored with the dogs they’ve acquired. Perhaps they can’t handle the size of their St Bernard or golden retriever, or they find their Jack Russell is a bit too destructive, or their cocker spaniel requires too much care. Perhaps they simply don’t know or don’t want to spend the time training the dog.
Or a person has bought the dog from a stranger in a market or from a “backyard breeder”, and it turns out later that without a proper breeding programme, the puppies have inherited genetic problems such as badly formed hips and knees that require expensive surgery to correct.
Or the owner wants to get rid of the dog he has so that he can make room for a breed that is the latest in popularity.
What happens to the unwanted dogs? A few weeks ago, you saw the photo of a St Bernard who spent his lonely life tied up and fed very little. Dirty and malnourished, the dog was judged too aggressive to be put in a new home. Rescuers often find other purebred dogs in temples, construction sites or just on the road.
Purebred dogs have been abandoned for all these reasons for years. Now, rescuers are dealing with a new trend.
Rescuers think that the little one-eyed dog in the photo is actually a shih-tzu. The breed is beautiful but requires lots of grooming and training.
Just a pup, this boy was recently delivered to the Pravet dog pound by a woman in a Mercedes-Benz. She also brought the pup’s brother.
The vet at the pound explained to her that she had arrived very late in the day. The two pups would be sent to the pound in Uthai Thani, but because they’d arrive there even later, after the staff had gone home, the dogs would be put in a main cage, where there were many large dogs.
“They may be killed,” the vet warned.
The woman didn’t seem to understand. “I just had them groomed,” she said, as if grooming would make everything all right.
On the same day, a man in a Toyota Prius had dumped a shih-tzu and a pug at Pravet. The vet gave him the same explanation, that the little dogs might die, but he shrugged his shoulders and left.
At Uthai, the small dogs were indeed put in a cage with larger dogs. By morning, all had been killed by the larger dogs, except for this boy, who lost his eye in the attacks he suffered.
So what’s different now? Some people, rich or poor, have always dumped their unwanted dogs somewhere.
This time, though, as the woman was getting back in her Benz, she smiled at the vet.
“I’ll see you again,” she said. “I’m keeping the mother at home, and she’ll probably have more puppies.”
The woman didn’t mind throwing away household pets. She didn’t even see the need to stop producing even more throw-away pets.
