Don’t Leave Me Alone
Vena, Kou Wan
Holding a dog, a woman walked in. She wandered around and watched the trembling dogs in cages. Then she walked into the office. Out with one of the staff she came to the front of a cage, where she was going to abandon her dog. She expressed how reluctant she was to give up her dog and burst out crying. Finally her dog was locked in the cage. Seeing its flurry, the woman cried like a kid. This is not an uncommon scenario to be found in Macao Municipal Kennel.
Macao Municipal Kennel, a public animal shelter run by the Department of Food and Animal Inspection and Control of the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, provides abandoned dogs a home. Generally there are two kinds of dogs waiting for adoption. One type is stray dogs which are caught from the streets while the other is dogs which are abandoned by their owners and handed over there. If the stray dogs are not adopted within 72 hours after being caught, they could be euthanized according to Macao Municipal Kennel.
Based on the statistics from the official website of Macao Municipal Kennel, the number of stray dogs had an increasing trend from 2006 to 2010. In terms of animal euthanasia, 811 stray dogs were caught and sent to the government animal shelter in 2010 in which nearly 90% were euthanized. Although the organization is a shelter for abandoned dogs, many of them lose their lives there.
In Macao Municipal Kennel, there are not many cages for the dogs. Whenever people step into the space, it’s ordinary to see there are several dogs sharing a tiny cage together, showing the lack of room.
Lawmaker Jose Pereira Coutinho had once raised concerns on the issue of abandoned dogs. He urged the government to increase the capability of adopting abandoned animals and not to end the animals’ lives hastily because of the lack of room.
“I don’t want to agree with animal euthanasia but I have to,” said Lam Weng Si, a former dog owner. She said that it is impossible for Macao Municipal Kennel to adopt all abandoned dogs in that small space and thus animal euthanasia is inevitable. Lam argued that more spaces for abandoned dogs may contrarily encourage more people to abandon their dogs. She suggested that the government should start from education to raise people’s attention towards the problem of abandoned dogs.
“The extension of Macao Municipal Kennel can be a good move for the sake of dogs,” said Mak Ng Ben, a vet who had once worked in Macao Municipal Kennel for four years. He pointed out that staying in a small space for a long time would have bad impacts on the dogs’ psychological and physical aspects, so the extension of the space will improve this situation.
“But the extension of the space won’t solve the problem of abandoned dogs radically. What the government should do is to start from education to raise the awareness of Macao citizens towards this issue so that the dogs can really get help,” Mak said.