Cruelty to animals
Every suffering
stray animal is a shame on our communities
We have to
start showing and extending kindness to stray animals
Evelyn Priess
I wish to highlight an ongoing issue. Its not an issue from one emirate, but a general one, and it raises the question of what kind of community we wish to be.
Recently we found two stray dogs, one heavily pregnant. Both were in a terrible condition, more dead than alive, dehydrated and starving.
As a community we have to understand that ignoring stray animals is not going to get rid of them. We shouldnt seriously believe either, that poisoning the innocent is a solution. As long as pet shops are able to sell animals, we will always have people who are buying dogs and dumping them on the streets later. We have created this problem. We have ignored this problem and we cannot punish these animals for our failures. Its not going to solve the issue.
We have to start showing and extending kindness to stray animals. Even though we are used to seeing them between us, we stopped really looking at them. Living in the centre of Abu Dhabi island, Im always aware that my exposure to the animal world is one thats peculiar to my life in the UAE.
As the owner of a rescued cat and two dogs from a refuge, Im often awake early enough to hear the shrieks of white-eared bulbuls and thuggish myna birds as they sound their morning chorus, while an early morning dog walk inevitably reveals the glare of stray cats that sunbathe, sphinx-like, on local doorsteps and the roofs of parked cars.
The chickens and ducks that cross my path on my morning walks now seem commonplace, as do the evening flights of lurid, rose-ringed parakeets, but thankfully my neighbours pets always add a little spice to the usual urban menagerie.
Frequently on early Friday mornings, an Emirati gentleman and I nod to each other as he patrols the neighbourhood with a falcon on his wrist, and Im now adept at lifting a local peacock back to safety over the high wall of the garden where it roosts, but my near neighbours Najdi sheep take the notion of prized pets to another level.
Exercised by two small children, who walk them on leashes made from bright-pink acrylic twine, the tall sheep have the distinctive Roman noses and long necks that are so admired by farmers and collectors of this Arabian breed.
In October 2008, more than 4,000 men gathered from across the region for the first official Saudi beauty pageant dedicated to the sheep. The competition took place in a spotlit and red-carpet-lined paddock just north of Riyad, and is reported to have attracted visitors from as far afield as Kuwait and the UAE.
The star of the show, however, was a 3-year-old ram called Burgan which translates to Lightning the most-prized sheep in the kingdom at the time, whose owner compared him to an oil well because its much sought after offspring were said to have commanded prices of more than 8 million riyals (Dh7.8m).
These ovine celebrities always send my equally Arabian Salukis into a frenzy, so if I spot them in the distance, I always walk my two, who are a handful at the best of times, in the opposite direction.
It was on such a detour that I had an animal encounter of a type I would sooner forget.
Passing by some bins, I saw what looked like a roll of carpet that had been dumped near an apartment block, and as usual, my hounds began to strain at their leads, eager for something different to sniff.
It was only by the time it was too late that I realised the bundle wasnt an unwanted carpet, but the remains of an enormous, and very dead, dog.
The animal, which looked like some sort of long-haired, oversized Alsatian, had a wire coat hanger that was twisted, lethally, around its neck, and as I stood, struggling to keep my own dogs away from its corpse, it struck me that I was witness to an act of cruelty with malignance only overshadowed by the physical force that had gone into the execution.
As the depravity involved in the dogs killing dawned on me, so too did the callous manner of its disposal and the huge disparities in the ways animals are treated in a place where falcons may have their own airline seats, but where tales of animal cruelty are an everyday occurrence.
Last month, The National reported on the case of a dog found with its tail sawn off, just five days after another dog was discovered with one of its legs partly amputated, both of which were crimes, vets decided, that required significant force and more than one perpetrator.
Acts of animal abuse are found in all societies, and research shows they are understood to be symptomatic of a suffering and mental disturbance thats all too human.
But research in psychology and criminology has shown that people who commit acts of animal abuse often go on to commit acts of cruelty against similarly helpless human targets, while children who abuse animals are often repeating patterns of behaviour that they have experienced at home.
According to article 432 of the UAEs Federal Punishment Law, individuals found abusing animals can be fined up to Dh10,000. But given what we know about the likely causes of such behaviour, the most sustainable deterrent is surely the efforts that should be made by parents with their children, who should be treated with the same kindness and empathy that would also protect the pets they have at home.
Do we really believe that ignorance is going to get rid of stray animals? At what point do humans overlook a dying animal living among them?
We know that ignorance is not the solution. What we need is
proper stray management programmes. Without such initiatives, we will fail to solve the issue of stray animals.
Either we have to develop trap-neuter-release programmes and feeding stations, similar to those in Turkey, so that we can integrate stray animals into our communities, or we should follow the German example, where pets are either sourced from a shelter or from a certified breeder.
The current situation is unbearable and unacceptable. Every suffering stray animal is a shame on our communities and humankind.
The writer is a management member of the Emirates Animal Welfare Society
