My building has a rule against keeping dogs. I discovered it last year at the elevators, where I ran into my neighbor, “Uncle Soong,” with my new dog in tow.
Uncle Soong is fairly famous for being on the building management committee, and because his daughter is a real-estate agent who sold several of its units, including our home. He’s an old guy and not too spry, but when he saw Mia he skipped back super quick like a gazelle. He told me about the rule, and I told him I hadn’t known. He said to get rid of the dog, and the next day in the elevator I noticed a reminder about the dog ban.
“Transport Mia in a backpack,” advised my friend, who said that what Uncle Soong doesn’t know can’t hurt him.
Photo: Enru Lin, Taipei Times
“It is your democratic right to shelter a pet in your own home,” advised my father, who thinks he knows the Constitution.
PET BAN
Feeling hopeful, I did some Internet research and learned that it is probably not my democratic right to throw off my building’s dog-less fengshui. According to Article 16 of the Building Administration Division’s Condominium Administration Act (公寓大廈管理條例), pets “may not hinder public sanitation, peace or safety.” If the building management committee votes to ban pets in the building, the provisions apply.
Mia, who is meek and mostly mute, doesn’t hinder public sanitation, peace or safety, though I think an argument could be made that a dog’s presence alone could cause fear. Even if it couldn’t, the provision applied, so I was out of luck.
This situation is what Simon Yang (楊靜宇), who is running for Taipei city councilor, makes me think of.
Yang is a veterinarian and president of the Taipei Veterinary Medical Association (台北市獸醫師公會), who is turning to politics with a pet-friendly and food-safety-oriented platform. Among other things, he wants to scrap the pet-ban provision in Article 16 because it can result in various levels of suffering to pets.
“The no-pet ban can be enforced instantly and strictly — there’s a building near my office that’s done it,” Yang said.
Guan Wei (冠偉), a community management company, said that many of northern Taiwan’s new properties have rules about pets, while the very old ones often do not. Rules can be enforced strictly or not at all, depending on how motivated the residents are to do it. With enough evidence of grievance, a unified consortium of homeowners can request that another resident move out.
Yang said that he sees owners from such buildings regularly.
“Every month I get one or two owners who say they can’t keep their dog anymore, or that they want the dog debarked so it doesn’t pester the neighbors,” he said.
“But debarking means the dog has to go under anaesthesia, which has its risks. Afterward, there could be psychological discomfort because it doesn’t feel able to express its feelings. You could end up with a dog that’s depressed.”
MODERN LOVE
Yang’s sensitivity to the feelings of dogs is shared by more and more pet owners, but is a relatively recent phenomenon in Taiwan.
Hsu Wen-hui (許文輝), an elderly borough warden in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), says that it wasn’t too long ago when attitudes on pet ownership were strikingly different.
“Maybe dogs were tougher or cheaper when I was a boy and that’s why they were allowed to roam free. Dogs are more expensive now. People keep them in their homes, so there is great feeling between them,” Hsu said.
“I see dog owners like this now — they invest so much time and so much money to get a dog back if it gets lost. Once someone asked me to announce a cash award of NT$10,000 for a lost dog. A homeless man brought it back the same day,” Hsu said.
As dogs and their owners draw closer, owners and non-pet owners are finding more reasons to drift apart. Pet-related conflicts — mainly related to noise and odor — can get very heated.
Once I had a night-shift taxi driver who admired my building’s no-pet rule. He said his neighbor has a small dog who barks during the day and keeps him awake. His attempts to speak with the neighbor have ended in shouting. “People get truly upset if you don’t like their dogs,” he said. “For me, it’s not an ideal situation.”
I believe it. And while I think I should support Yang’s campaign to revise Article 16, Uncle Soong, for all of his continued reminders that feel like invitations to Farmville, has an honest fear and grievance.
So what to do? I am not sure. I laugh about it, get annoyed about it, put on some Whitney Houston. Maybe Uncle Soong is doing the same.
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