THE CICAK.com

Selayang dog hunt: Council astray, SPCA erratic

Photo from The Star

By DAVINA GOH

The above shows gaudy bright lights bouncing off an oversized dark grey jacket. Its wearer bears a feeble grip on a pole, generously wrapped and decorated in yellow paper ribbon. Attached to the end of the pole is a rope looping around a cardboard cut-out of a dog. Despite not being real, the dog is looking how she would be if she really was gracing the occasion: lost, forlorn and completely clueless of what she’s doing there. And looking at the plastic smile of the mock dog catcher, he doesn’t know what he’s doing there either.

The dude in the grey suit is Datuk Tang See Hang, a Selangor executive councilor and Rawang assemblyman. Datuk Tang has officiated a dog catching competition, organized by the Selayang Municipal Council (MPS).

Little did he know that from that day onward, he would come under fire by Malaysian citizens who are shocked by such a competition. The backlash describes the move as foolish, uncivil and inhumane. The news has since made international headlines, further complicating the challenge for Malaysia to shake off her Third World reputation.

Article in Sin Chiew Daily

What were you thinking?

At a time where sponsorships for competitions are generally low and trivial, the rewards for the doghunt are lucrative: RM15,000, RM13,000 and RM11,000. The competition is supposedly the first of more to come in the Council’s attempt to deal with the stray dog problem in its residential areas.

“(The Council) have drawn up guidelines which all dog catchers must follow,” the Datuk says. However, one look at the guideline list on the Council website and one may wonder what there is to follow - after all, half of it merely describes the monetary incentives.

The rest of the uncomfortably brief rules include: the canine targets are limited to strays, they have to be captured alive, and the Council puts a disclaimer that it’s not responsible for any mishaps that may occur to the participants.

For a participant to capture a minimum of 150 dogs to be eligible for the prizes, I sincerely doubt those who are hell-bent on winning will take the stray-only rule into consideration, resulting in a possible sudden hike in pet theft. A dog beaten half to death can still be counted as “alive,” and there is no mention of the fate of the dogs once they have been surrendered to MPS. And with such primitive dog-catching instruments being distributed by the Council, it will far from protect their welfare of inexperienced competitors, especially in the face of a dog that resorts to aggression in its own defense.

I’m irked about numerous issues. MPS wants to stress on what a problem the stray dogs are becoming. Why complain about oft-perceived haram dogs, when MPS can just as easily take initiatives on cats, rats and even roaches? Or on a much menacing scale, the mat rempits and snatch thieves?

The competition is just a quick and efficient way for the Council to clean their hands of a negative situation that got out of hand due to their irresponsibility and nonchalance in the first place; the root of the problem is not even being tackled. In addition, I’m troubled by the encouragement of such a malicious game by an authoritative body. The government orders an international female popstar to cover up as to preserve the good morals of our country; on the other hand, the country’s own citizens are being told that an implication of the inevitable abuse of animals, a contradiction in most religious teachings, is in fact a fun and virtuous recreational activity.

But what is overtly unsettling is the insane amount of money at stake. Instead of wasting taxpayer’s money on cash-hungry residents who may not be aware of the magnitude of their misdeeds, it could be put to much better use if invested in educating the public about the animals and emphasizing the importance of spaying and neutering.

The money could also be used to:
1. Make such procedures are affordable and accessible.
2. Hire professional dog handlers to round up the strays using more humane methods such as tranquilizer guns.
3. Invest in shelter homes to accommodate canine overpopulation, and organizing adoption campaigns.
4. Support financially-starved animal shelters that already exist such as Furry Friends Farm, SPCA or PAWS.

The alternatives are endless and undoubtedly more effective in the long run.

MPS has proudly announced that despite the public uproar, it will stand its ground and let the dog catching competition carry on as planned. As a body of people whom we have put trust in by default to make sound, logical and well thought-out decisions, it’s safe to say that MPS has literally gone to the dogs.

Where are you when we need you?

When it comes to animal welfare, the first acronym that will most likely form on anyone’s lips in Malaysia is the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). The Selangor branch of this NGO has been very vocal in its disapproval of the competition, as well as any other large-scale, high-publicity crises pertaining to animal welfare (including the infamous massacre of Mr. Eng Her Sun’s 13 dogs in Seremban last year). But their long-term commitment to the cause has been rather erratic.

Over the course of three years, the SPCA collected over 80,000 signatures in its plea to the Government to impose stricter fines on animal cruelty offenders (the current maximum penalty is a shockingly paltry RM200), and the petition was submitted to the Prime Minister’s Political Secretary in January this year. Unfortunately, there has been no follow-up to the case so far. The last news related to the matter was when it was announced that the Animals Act 2006 had been passed without any amendments made, which means that it has remained unchanged for over fifty years!

A handful of local independent groups have been more persistent in their on-ground campaigns and initiatives in educating the public about animal welfare, including the Furry Friends Farm (FFF), Remember Sheena Campaign, and the Independent Pet Rescuers. Occasionally combining forces, a few examples of their exploits over the course of two short years include the Belum-Temenggor documentary screenings in TGV Cinemas, the plight for Joy the severely abused dog, FFF’s recent launch of its “pet sanctuary” and the Dr. Dog program in Malaysia, and even a fundraising concert to be staged later this month, not to mention the regular pet adoption drives being held in various shopping hotspots in the Klang Valley.

The irony that lies here is that due to their pro-activeness, many cases of animal and pet abuse in Malaysia reach more of these independent groups than SPCA itself, when all these groups comprise of are everyday citizens of Malaysia who, when not clocking in their 9-to-5 jobs, are dedicated to the cause without any intent of seeking recognition. It goes to show that SPCA’s impressive-looking track record bears little substance unless it starts proving to the public that it will continue to live up to its aims and objectives.

Now, with the Malay Mail’s newly-published report of Datuk Tang agreeing to discuss Selayang’s stray dog problem with SPCA, we can only blindly hope that both parties are not only doing it to add another clipping to their shrine of social responsibility: that they, like me and many others, really do care.

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DAVINA GOH is a contributing writer for theCICAK.

Davina works in events management and moonlights in the Malaysian entertainment scene. She also a contributing writer for Living Arts, a free newsletter published by The Actors Studio Malaysia. Visit her site.