Why some people should be banned from having pets!

When Shah Alam had a ruling of getting the left right centre and back neighbours to sign an Approval Letter in order to obtain a dog license, I half felt it was justifiable in some ways! This is also a Love-Thy-Neighbour situation whereby if you think you know that your neighbour is a sensible, responsible and decent enough person, why the hell shouln't you sign their Approval Letter?

By doing that, a lot of Animal Cruelty could've been stopped/avoided in the first place by irresponsible dog owners! And I do mean things like caging their dogs ALL the time and tying their dog at the same place all the time. We also received reports of families beating their dogs everyday for no apparent reason. It is funny a lot dog owners think it's "okay" to keep their dogs caged or tied up. If only these people will stop being stupid and used some common sense. Dogs that are caged/chained all the time will only develop more frustration and have more behaviour problems. If you have no choice but to do so, do keep it at only 4 hours max.

When asked why, many seem to answer "The dog destroys things in the garden" or "The dog gets crazy and uncontrollable if released"... Well look here buddy, if you can't control your dog after 3 years, you really should realise what's wrong...

So today I was asked to go along for a dog confiscation with the Inspectorate and the Govt Enforcement Officers at a skanky, filthy corner house in OUG. We got the complaint that there were dogs abandoned in the seemingly deserted house. The tenant wasn't seen in months and neighbours feared the dogs would starve to death. With Enforcement Team around at least we could confiscate the dogs...

Arriving at the gate we were greeted by two males barking furiously and we were told there should be two more smaller dogs inside. We could hear some barking inside but couldn't see them. The whole house was a wreck and didn't smell like a bunch of daisies....

After a short time bantering back and forth what was the best way to catch the dogs, our magic guy Thin had already climbed into the premises and started making friends with the bigger male. I guess in our line of work, many people asks us if we are afraid of getting bitten by dogs. Well, of course there is a risk but also after some time, we do get better at gauging which dogs will definately kill you and which ones won't.

It was partly also a good thing the dogs were hungry as we understood from the neighbour they hadn't been fed for days. At the smell of canned dog food the bigger Alpha dog was eating out of Thin's palm in no time. We could not cut the padlocks and were still deciding to lift the cage into the gate while Thin was trying to coax the Alpha into the garbage hatch and he wasn't in the mood to cooperate. It didn't work.

So our Enforcement guy did some trick and the gates did open, so we caught both dogs with a breeze and went to the back area and to our horror, there were 3 little Shih-tzus in the most depressing state; Long, Matted fur, dirty cages, with empty bowls and one with a water that looked like it was sitting in there for 3 years.

Once let out they were a friendly bunch and started eating hungrily. Closer look and one of them has a horrendous eye infection which I initially thought it was blind from all the pus that was coming out from both eyes!

Magic Thin works he's magic...

Also among the collection was 9 huge terrapins.

At this point the ammonia smell was getting a bit too much, a look around the house it was littered with chinese deity figurines and I noticed the next door neighbour had been watching us so I had a little chat with the neighbour and according to her the Tenant is a Fortune Teller by profession! I wonder if the joker had predicted his own fortune he's animals were being confiscated on that day!

We loaded everything in our little Van and headed down to the Govt Vet Clinic to get all the animals checked. We started with the Shih Tzus as they were easier to handle and this black & white one has a bit of fever and the lady said he's eyes were fine. Weight was ok. So, she concluded that they were ok only one of the brown ones has a bad eye infection but it's not blind. I wasn't so convinced. Understandably, Govt Officials knowing that we have some resources we were told to bring them back for further checks... She smiled, signing off and said she was going home... well, gee...

I burst out laughing as this scraggly cutie tried to be kissy kissy with me while he was being checked...

After being advised not to groom the dogs first, as it would be tampering with the evidence, we brought everybody back to our office. It took a bit of time sorting out all the animals as we already have so many being fostered in our office. If our neighbours won't be very pleased at all with the amount of animals we have!

It was hilarious to see the terrapins were trying to escape and were running about on our front porch! One was even trying to attempt squeezing out the gate!

The 9 terrapins have settled in cosily in one of the bathtubs upstairs. Right now, we can only wait for the DVS to compile their reports and get hold of the Fortune Teller joker, and hopefully, have a case to prosecute, God forbid, it has been 4 years since they had a successful prosecution!