The festive season is certainly not a time to rejoice for a non-governmental organisation such as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).
The Ramadan and the coming Hari Raya celebrations simply mean a significant increase in the number of animals, especially cats, being abandoned or surrendered to SPCA, its chairman Christine Chin said.
This has been the situation for several years now.
“This is sad, but true. While humans go out to enjoy themselves, the pets are surrendered to us on grounds that there is nobody to take care of the animals during the long holiday,” Chin said. “Since mid-August, there has been a 15 per cent increase in the number of cats surrendered to us.”
Expecting more to come, Chin said this has been the trend every year and when Chinese New Year approaches, the situation is nonetheless the same.
While the “nicer” owners bring their pets to SPCA, there are those who dump the cats on the streets, leaving them to starve.
And when the numbers of surrendered pets are simply too overwhelming to re-home or manage, they are put to sleep. “We take in about 600 animals a month. I must stress that surrendering pets to SPCA should be the very last resort,” she said, adding that this also means mounting medical treatment and food bills.
“Owners who can’t care for the pets during festive seasons should seek help from friends, colleagues, neighbours or better still, use animal boarding services.”
SPCA and Kuala Lumpur City Hall have set up a subsidised spay-neuter clinic, called Klinik Kembiri, at Jalan Ayer Panas in Setapak to help control the over breeding of cats and dogs. The clinic can be reached at 03-4024 3446.
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