If you lived in the wild and you had all these crazy dogs running after you, wouldn’t you beat them off with a stick? Yes. Yes, you would.
They have rabies and are disease-ridden. Get rid of them.
But I guess that’s the problem. The authorities do nothing.
Anyway, feeding them doesn’t do any good. Each person should take one in to a shelter or something. Are there shelters in places like Hualien? I’m not sure. If they have to eventually put them to sleep at the shelter, well then boo hoo.
[quote=“Stray Dog”]Take a look at my post again. I never suggested starving the dogs.
If you want to feed strays, you should neuter them too; it’s as simple as that. If not, you’re producing more strays, which will essentially reduce the amount of food available to each dog, and thereby cause more suffering and starvation.
I am seeing exactly this more and more in my work; the people who are feeding the strays are now doing their best to get them neutered. The message has gone out and people are taking note. Plus, those feeding the dogs are in the best position to capture them for sterilization and vaccination. It works.
If you want to artificially raise the amount of food available to stray populations, you must also have a plan to counter the ensuing rise in their numbers. If not, you mat actually be making the problem worse … for more dogs.[/quote]
I think your post was unclear, or I misread it. Thanks for the clarification, I fully agree. Some people only have means to feed the dogs, but not to neuter them, though. I don’t think we should fine, nor blame these people, and I think you alluded to that, too, now that I’ve re-read your post.
Erm … not to call you ignorant or anything, but, no, the dogs here don’t have rabies. But I’m guessing you knew that anyway. 
And ‘getting rid of them’ doesn’t work. You vaccinate the stray population if you want to eradicate rabies (in a country that has rabies, such as India, for instance, who gave up after more than a century of ‘getting rid of them’ as they found it was completely ineffective and rabies deaths in humans resulting from dog bites actually increased in that time). CNR worked.
The voice of reason. Thank you. 
[quote=“j99l88e77”]
Anyway, feeding them doesn’t do any good. Each person should take one in to a shelter or something. Are there shelters in places like Hualian? I’m not sure. If they have to eventually put them to sleep at the shelter, well then boo hoo.[/quote]Bingo. Of course, I would hate that an innocent animal would die for nothing. They should televise them being put down, during peak hours. It might make people think twice before discarding their pets. Better still, they should have some documentaries to show how much responsibility is required to properly care for a pet so maybe all those unfit owners would think before buying.
Yeah, I know. Never gonna happen.
Ha, you people amuse me. 
My suggestion is that God simply outfit each stray dog with 10x strength, 10x intelligence, some high powered almost-but-not-quite-lethal weaponry, and orders to seek out vengeance upon the owner that dumped it on the street. Dogs born stray get to go straight to doggie heaven. Lost dogs get magically sent back home minus all of the nasty habits they picked up on the street.
[quote=“necroflux”]My suggestion is that God simply outfit each stray dog with 10x strength, 10x intelligence.[/quote]I would just give them the ability to speak for themselves. I’m sure they would have a lot on their hearts to say. 
[quote=“trapjaw”]
Sorry, but why hasn’t anyone questioned the municipality/parks department/whoever is in control of the parks’ cleanliness here? It’s all just, “well, there’s dog shit on the ground, let’s blame the dogs + people who feed them, there ya go problem solved.” So, because someone is feeding a stray animal it immediately becomes his responsibility to make sure all of the suroundings in which the animal may roam are kept squeaky clean?
Bollocks. The government/municipality should be the ones keeping public spaces clean and safe. They should be funding CNR programs, and educating the general populace on how to take care of animals, why to neuter them, why to clean up after them, and why not to dump them in the street.
Blaming people who feed stray dogs, or saying that these people must assume all responsiblity for the actions of these animals is very short sighted, and just a knee-jerk response, which will probably have no effect at all on the overall problem, just as the whole dog catching and killing thing does. Look at the studies. CNR is what works. If the government/municipailty chooses to ignore the findings and recommendations of these studies, and continues on their course of fighting the symptoms (which will just keep on recurring and recurring) instead of tackling the roots of the problem, it’s their fault.[/quote]
by this logic, people who litter aren’t responsible for the mess they create either because the government should go around picking up after them and educating people not to litter.
i can see compassionately feeding a stray animal but do recognize that you are placing an additional burden on an already dirty and crowded environment, to be shared equally by all who live here, not all of who may place the same value on feeding strays as you do.
Comparing littering to feeding starving animals now… Agreed that not everyone places the same value on feeding strays, but to compare it with littering… Geez… Not one consideration that animals are living beings, and that they do suffer when they don’t have anything to eat. That’s just great.
Alright, carry on now…
So, let me get this straight- Joe Blow gets a dog and doesn’t spay it and when the ensuing litter arrives, he takes the pups he can’t get rid of and dumps them in the local park. Susie Nice notices the puppies as she walks her dog and feels sorry for the pups, who are now shy of humans after multiple people have heaved sticks and rocks at them, so she leaves some food for them. She now gets arrested for endangering public health while Joe Blow makes plans to dump the next ensuing litter in another park. Of course, everyone notices Susie Nice feeding strays but no one ever seems to notice Joe Blow dumping dogs. Interesting. And on top of this, Susie is expected to pick up the dogshit because someone’s shoes got dirty. And while she’s at it, she better catch those dogs and spay/neuter/vaccinate them.
I got a better idea- why don’t all of you who complain about dogshit start reporting people for dumping the poor dogs, demand that a mandatory spay/neuter law be enacted and enforced, plan fundraisers to help pay for professionals to trap the dogs and spay/neuter/vaccinate them, etc. No, I doubt you’ll be rushing out to do that. Instead you cheer when a sign is slapped up and whine about getting dog crap on your Guccis. :boo-hoo:
[quote=“bobepine”]Whatever. Asking someone to follow the strays he/she feeds so that he/she can clean the feces that follows. Non sense.
You asked and got answer. [/quote]That was not an answer. It was a selfish rant from a dog owner who could not care less that strays are starving.
Let’s get back on topic. Are you saying it’s OK to issue fines to stray dogs feeders? Should we begin to monitor which ones do, and which ones do not pick up feces after the strays they feed?[/quote]
I suggest some reading glasses or simply not posting at 3 in the morning in a bad mood.
Where did MM say that he couldn’t care less that strays would starve? Did he not say that if there is insufficient food, the dogs will move on to another area with a better food source?
He also never said people who feed dogs should FOLLOW them and pick up their crap.
While I do not think MM’s suggestions are very helpful in this case, he does bring up a good point. The people who feed strays on a regular basis are sort of nonchalant about their amount of dogcrap that is a direct result of that food. Then there’s the diseases which infect other animals, and then there’s the dogcrap on the sidewalks and on the grass in the parks.
The parks were made for human enjoyment, not for stray dogs. I don’t blame people for wanting to keep strays out. Not every human is some bastard dog abandonner. Some just want to enjoy their taxes dollars and relax with their kids.
The selfish buttmonkeys that dump their dogs can’t be caught and so a problem ensues. It’s not the dogs’ fault, but nor it is the fault of most people who want to use their park.
From what I’ve learned in these forums over the last two years, the most humane and realistic thing that can be done for the community and the dogs is stop feeding them and CNR the ones that remain.
ID chips at birth. Like registering a car in your name. If you don’t make sure the new owner puts it in his or her name, you pay the fines. And should you abandon the vehicle, you can be easily traced.
If companion animals were ID chipped and desexed at two months of age, before going to a new ‘owner’, we could eradicate abandoning of strays in a generation. Follow that up with active CNR, and you will be implementing a population control system that will show massive results in just a couple of years.
You could spend your life mopping up water from a leaky pipe or you could trace back to the source of the problem and fix it there. There is sense being shown here: if you want to stop dog crap from stray dogs, go for those who put the dogs there, not those who put the food in the dogs’ mouths (though they could and should also help with fixing the problem closer to source).
Well the difficulty here Sean is that the dumpers are rarely caught, and if the dogs are not chipped, then they are also untraceable.
btw, going to the weiya today?;D
The difficulty is now because of the lack of microchips, which is why this should be implemented immediately. Our vet regularly notifies the authorities of any chipped dogs who the owner won’t take back and reports them for abandoning the animal. They pay up to NT$50,000 in fines.
CNR is the key now. Removing the dogs can actually trigger a small population explosion as more pups will be born to take advantage of the newly available resources (dogs have litters that reflect the availability of food in the area: smaller and less frequent - it’s not that we’re starving dogs to reduce their numbers; we’re preventing them thinking this is a good time or place to have lots of kids).
It’s kind of like giving too many welfare benefits and making it to easy to claim. The biggest families in my home town were always those on welfare.
Sean (one sibling)
Will try to make the weiya. Can’t promise anything, though!
[quote=“bobepine”]Comparing littering to feeding starving animals now… Agreed that not everyone places the same value on feeding strays, but to compare it with littering… Geez… Not one consideration that animals are living beings, and that they do suffer when they don’t have anything to eat. That’s just great.
Alright, carry on now…[/quote]
i think i did show that consideration, which is more than you’re doing for people who have to bear the effects of dog poop created. expecting the government to clean up after strays you are raising outside is no different than expecting the government to pick up any other kind of litter.
[quote=“jdsmith”][quote=“bobepine”]Whatever. Asking someone to follow the strays he/she feeds so that he/she can clean the feces that follows. Non sense.
You asked and got answer. [/quote]That was not an answer. It was a selfish rant from a dog owner who could not care less that strays are starving.
Let’s get back on topic. Are you saying it’s OK to issue fines to stray dogs feeders? Should we begin to monitor which ones do, and which ones do not pick up feces after the strays they feed?[/quote]
I suggest some reading glasses.[/quote]Man some of you guy have a hard time discussing the message only.
[quote]Where did MM say that he couldn’t care less that strays would starve? [/quote]Here: [quote=“Maoman”]If I saw someone feeding strays in my neighborhood, I’d give him hell. [/quote][quote=“jd”]Did he not say that if there is insufficient food, the dogs will move on to another area with a better food source?[/quote]Yes, he did. But following the logic of giving hell to the dog feeders, I suppose the next neighborhood will have someone else who will do the same as him. That to me, reads as the dog can starve somewhere else, just not in MY neighborhood. In fact, some neighborhoods will take it to the extreme and spend time having meetings to pass legislations, discuss issuing fines, print warnings, etc, instead of finding ways to help this problem logically, and with compassion. People like that need to educate themselves instead of making things more difficult for the dogs, and for those who are just trying to help them. Besides, more and more dog feeders are now neutering the dogs, and they even find homes for some of them. It’s happening more and more, and issuing fines to these people is only taking away their resources to CNR more animals on their own. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. The person I quoted in the OP has had many dogs treated, neutered, vaccinated, and re-homed. Issuing a fine to her for doing that is incongruous. Going after the feeders is the wrong way to go about it, and I think Sean made that very clear, too.
[quote=“jd”]He also never said people who feed dogs should FOLLOW them and pick up their crap.[/quote]Not in these exact words, but I think that holding the feeders responsible for the dogs they feed means just that. Here: [quote=“Maoman”]It’s easy to throw table scraps outside one’s door, but it takes real civic-mindedness to clean up the poop that is a direct result of those thrown away table scraps. Haven’t seen much of that, I’m afraid. … …I’d be a lot more sympathetic to stray-dog feeders if they were also stray-dog poop picker-uppers.[/quote](not meaning to go back and pick at Maoman, BTW. Just responding to your suggestion that I should take reading classes before I read his posts…)
[quote] The people who feed strays on a regular basis are sort of nonchalant about their amount of dogcrap that is a direct result of that food.[/quote]And other people are nonchalant about starving beings who are in that predicament because of other nonchalant people who put them there. That’s a whole lot of nonchalant people going after a handful of compassionate people if you ask me.
[quote=“jd”]Not every human is some bastard dog abandonner. Some just want to enjoy their taxes dollars and relax with their kids. [/quote]Enjoying your tax dollars? At the price of dogs being pushed away from one neighborhood to another via starvation because in every park someone will give feeders hell and try to issue fines to them? Again, I suggest that people educate themselves on how to fight this problem logically, humanely, and with a bit more compassion for the poor dogs who are starving on the street. But as long as the solution for some of you is to not feed the poor animals, and even issue fines to those who do, I’m not even sure you deserve to enjoy your tax money.
That’s what everyone wants to do… Enjoy themselves while the whole world is overflowing with misery. I see that misery in the eyes of strays every day.
[quote=“Tempo Gain”][quote=“bobepine”]Comparing littering to feeding starving animals now… Agreed that not everyone places the same value on feeding strays, but to compare it with littering… Geez… Not one consideration that animals are living beings, and that they do suffer when they don’t have anything to eat. That’s just great.
Alright, carry on now…[/quote]
i think i did show that consideration, which is more than you’re doing for people who have to bear the effects of dog poop created. expecting the government to clean up after strays you are raising outside is no different than expecting the government to pick up any other kind of litter.[/quote]Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the poop everywhere either, and I can fully understand how it bothers people, and how it is an environmental issue. No doubt there.
I think you are mixing things up. The government isn’t expected to clean the poop. They are expected to do the right thing, which certainly isn’t going after the dog feeders who are simply picking up after the lack of funding, lack of proper legislation, lack of law enforcement, etc, which is at the very roots of the stray overpopulation in Taiwan.
Mind me, things are changing. More and more positive changes are made, at the government level, both to reduce the amount of strays, and to help the ones that are on the street as we speak. More changes will be needed, though. The stray overpopulation in Taiwan is a national problem, and one that the government will need to address further in order to make Taiwan a leader in animal welfare in Asia. I think it will happen.
I don’t think they have to follow them. But if they took time daily to cclean the general area where the dogs they feed hang out, and clean up the most obvious offences, then the parks, sidewalks and streets would be a lot more pedestrian-friendly. I’m in favour of that.
bobepine, have you heard of the expression “sacred cow”? Stray dogs in Taiwan seem to be sacred cows to you. In India, they have a similar problem, but with cows. Because cows are revered, it’s considered bad form to even shoo them out of the way. Here’s the gov’t determination:
[quote]Delhi High Court (HC) has ruled that their menace to the city dwellers is a violation of the Fundamental Right `Right to Life’ guaranteed by Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
Herds of strays:
Block traffic and cause traffic jams / hazards / snarls / accidents.
Scavenge for mounds of garbage dumps in the polluted streets/roads in order to graze / eat / gorge it.
Give milk that spreads diseases such as tuberculosis, which causes 5,00,000 deaths each year (in India).
Defecate on roads and clog sewers with dung.
Make people who drink their garbage-tainted or polluted milk sick.
Chase, attack/injure people and gore/trample them to death.
Are let loose by the owners to feed themselves untended.
Cause blockage of sewerage system and health hazards.
Add to the cities’ garbage problem by rummaging through dustbins or garbage bins, spreading / littering trash, looking for food.
Can be seen tearing open plastic garbage bags in search of food and leaving trails of dung.
Squat and nap on busy roads / highways / intersections, and mingle among vendors in city markets.
Occupy parks and land in residential areas. Share public spaces with humans.[/quote]
However, many advocates in India argue that cows are special, that it would be cruel to eliminate them, and of course that it’s against Hinduism to harm them or kill them. Even pushing a stray cow out of the way of traffic can get you beaten up, if you don’t show the proper amount of respect.
I don’t want to live in India.
[quote=“bobepine”]
I think you are mixing things up. The government isn’t expected to clean the poop. They are expected to do the right thing, which certainly isn’t going after the dog feeders who are simply picking up after the lack of funding, lack of proper legislation, lack of law enforcement, etc, which is at the very roots of the stray overpopulation in Taiwan.
.[/quote]
well, i don’t think i am, trapjaw seemed to be expecting exactly that.
it’s a matter of perspective. i understand your reasons for making this argument but i don’t think you can wash your hands of a problem you are contributing to simply because it is compassionate. imo it’s not surprising governments would take such measures, whether feeding strays is prohibited and whether proper measures will be taken to control the stray population are two separate issues. i don’t have a problem with respectfully disagreeing with you on the former and supporting you on the the latter.
Man some of you guy have a hard time discussing the message only.[/quote]
Commenting on your typical style of posting isn’t an attack. It is an observation.
You read WAY to much into what people write, an infer that many things are being said, when in fact they are not being said.
Here[/quote]:
Maoman wrote:
If I saw someone feeding strays in my neighborhood, I’d give him hell.[/quote]
Now tell em how in the hell that means he wouldn’t care if the dogs starved?
To me it means, they can walk down the road and feed them there.
Tell me, why is it that nearly every person who disagrees with you is cast in the same demonic mold?
Your way or the higway, eh?
12 years ago the stray dog problem was a National Problem. The main problem was that piles of garbage all over the place were stinking fetid buffets for the dogs. They stopped the dumping of garbage on the street, and took other less helpful measures, like capturing and killing the dogs, but still, they removed a huge part of the food source. The stray population went down, dramatically. I am not joking when I say there were PACKS of dogs roaming the streets of Hsin Chuang, Panchiao and Taipei City. The problem of strays still exists today and stopping people from feeding the dogs is just another way of reducing the food supply. That works to decrease the stray dog problem.
Sean said it himself, less food, fewer puppies.
And to show how hypocritical I am, my son and I just bought a can of cat food for three kittens hanging out on a scooter downtown. 
Maoman,
If saying that you should not advocate against feeding hungry animals sounds like dogs are sacred cows to me, I don’t know… That’s a tad different than beating someone up for making a dog/cow to move off the street. :s Advocate not feeding the cows, though, and well, they may just become sacred to me, too. However you want to look at it.
jd, I didn’t say you attacked me, I said that you addressed the messenger. My posting style is relevant to me/the messenger, and has nothing to do with the topic.
As for the “demonic” comment, you are exaggerating. I am merely expressing a strong opinion against letting dogs be hungry because it makes our lives better. It’s totally disregarding the lives of other beings, it’s selfish, absurd, and incongruous. Where did I use the word evil or demonic? And you tell me I read too much into what people write? Oh the irony.