Stray Dogs Problem in Taiwan

張貼日期：Jan 10, 2013 4:41:58 AM

Tina Zeng

In Taiwan, there are more than sixty thousand homeless dogs, which has been causing serious problems. They make our streets dirty, squeeze our living place, and affect our daily life, so the majority of people regard these homeless dogs as disaster, keeping away from them as possible as they can. However, they forget these homeless dogs were once adorable pooches held in their arms. Certainly, human being is the origin of the stray dogs problem, and the fast fertility of stray dogs also aggravates the problems.

First of all, the rooted reason we have stray dogs is people’s malicious abandoning. People do not think carefully before buying a pet. Because of influence of media, people might blindly buy a pet. For example, numerous people bought a smart and cute pet like Beagles in the movie Cats & Dogs as they are intelligent, and are popular as pets due to their size, even temper, and lack of inherited health problems, but they need broad space to run so it is not suitable for the majority of Taiwan’s families. Nevertheless, they abandon their pet when they realize they do not enjoy taking care of it. A pet is lovely when it is small; however, when it grows to a mature size it may be abandoned just because the owner finds that she/he is not able to afford it any longer. Raising dogs is not effortless, and it not only costs money but also takes time. The most difficult part of raising a dog is being patient with it. The owner has to wash the dog, clean up its drop and take it to the vet for regular injection, and so on.

The Second reason is massive reproduction of dogs by the unworthy businessmen who intend making profits only. Worst of all, they abandon a large number of dogs at the time when the prices decrease or the dogs are useless. At times, the pet shop hides the real health condition of a dog in order to sell it, urging customers to buy the pet rather than warning them of the responsibilities of raising it. There was famous news about the puppy mill of Chihuahua. According to the report, someone found a disused factory where there were a tremendous number of abandoned dogs. Not only Chihuahua but also a few other types of popular dogs, such as Maltese and Poodle, were abandoned. These pitiful dogs were living in a terrible condition. Two or three dogs were cadged in the tiny dirty coop, eating the overdue food with maggot wriggling, drinking the muddy water covered with grime. The only function of these miserable animals is to breed more puppies until they die.

Finally, the biggest problem is that the stray dogs multiply so quickly that the catcher cannot get them all, and the majority of strays is the offspring of homeless dogs. Dogs need only three months to have a baby. If a female stray does not neuter, she can breed almost thirty puppies a year. It means that there will be more and more homeless dogs in the street. The fertility of a dog is faster than a human’s so there are not enough families to adopt the homeless dogs. With the increase of the number of the stray dogs, the stray dog problems are becoming more and more difficult to control.

The Stray dogs problem have been severe in our society. We have to take this issue seriously. Some people suggest that we should set up more shelters for stray dogs, but I do not think it is the best way to solve the problem. The best idea, in my opinion, is to adopt a stray dog instead of buying a dog from a pet shop when people want to raise a dog. Helping neuter stray dogs is to prevent these dogs from breeding more stray puppies. Therefore, we should think twice before we want to raise a pet. Don’t let humans’ selfishness harm more innocent animals. Dogs can be our friends only if we solve the stray dogs problem.