The delicious scent of food wafts from the kitchen of Huang Ai-yu (
Like many animal lovers, Huang, 64, could not resist feeding hungry stray animals and offering a helping hand to animals suffering from skin diseases or trauma after being hit by cars.
Since Huang picked up her first stray dog 13 years ago, she joked that she has begun down "the road of no return."
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Formerly a soft-drink delivery woman, Huang quit her job two years ago and became a full-time caretaker of the 200 stray dogs, which she cares for and sleeps with on an empty lot next to a scrap yard in the Sungshan district.
She gave each dog a name and remembers each one. Ban-ban is a striped mongrel; Ah-dai is a chubby male dog; and Little Mice is a black and striped mongrel. It was as small as a mouse when it first arrived as a puppy, she said.
Every afternoon she visits three nearby markets to pick up pig livers, chicken heads, and leftover chopped meat reserved for her free of charge by generous butchers.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
"I'm lucky to have them help me out with the food. What costs the most, though, are their medical bills," she said, adding that she may spend up to NT$10,000 a month on medical bills on top of the NT$3,500 electricity and utility bills and the NT$1,000 garbage disposal fee.
Over the course of years, she said, she has been forced to relocate the animals, fined for disrupting the quality of life in her neighborhood and fought with her two children and late husband who strongly opposed her caring for the dogs.
"It's very hard," she said.
Huang, however, is not alone.
Fifty-four-year-old Mrs Yin feeds about 30 cats in her neighborhood and keeps 22 dogs on the rooftop of her apartment building in the same district.
She came to the Taipei Municipal Animal Shelter (台北市立動物之家) in Neihu last Friday to check whether she could adopt a female dog and her six new-born puppies.
"They told me that I need to pay for the neutering and electronic tagging fees for all seven of them, but who knows whether the new-borns would survive after I spend so much money on them," she said, adding that they were allowed to take new-born puppies before, without having to go through the tagging process.
The current electronic tagging charge is NT$750 per dog. Neutering fees, however, vary, depending on the size and gender of the animal.
The city, however, offers pet owners an NT$800 subsidy for neutering a male dog and NT$1,500 for a female dog in a bid to encourage owners to neuter their pets.
Mr Ho also came to the shelter Friday to inspect the three dogs he was interested in adopting but was sorely disappointed when he learned that they had all been put to sleep the previous day.
"They're sure efficient. I'm here one day late and they were all gone," he said.
Ho keeps four stray dogs himself and feeds stray animals on Wuhsing Street.
Dog killers?
Since the Animal Protection Law (
Statistics show that the number of stray dogs in the city has decreased from 30,000 to 18,000 this year. Taipei's 1999 neutering rate for domestic dogs reached 30 percent, the highest in the country. The city's dog adoption rate is also the highest in the nation -- up from 16 percent in 1998 to 35 percent in 1999.
The report also showed that the city had the nation's second-highest number of registered dogs in 1999 -- recorded at 84,708. The number of the city's stray dogs which are put to sleep is the fifth-lowest among the nation's 23 counties and cities -- about 800 per month or 10,000 per year.
Despite the shiny statistics, animal rights activists like Huang, Yin and Ho, criticized city authorities as "cold-blooded butchers."
Daniel Lin (
"Most people think that we're animal killers, but we're not. We're doing this for the well-being of the 3 million city residents," he said.
According to Lin, there are three kinds of animal shelters in Taiwan: those intended for life-long care of animals, those for short-term stays before being given away for adoption, and those that offer short-term stays but put animals to sleep.
"We're required by law to accept any animal brought in to us and to take care of them for seven days before they're either adopted, or transferred to contracted veterinary hospitals for another seven-day stay before possible adoption, or to be put to sleep," he said. "Although our adoption rate ranks as the highest in the nation, many dogs still need to go."
But the shelter is not an execution center, Lin said.
"Our ultimate goal is to better educate the public on caring for and respecting animals. The message is clear: if people don't take good care of their pets, they may put the lives of their pets at risk."
Since the shelter has limited resources, Lin said, they need to do their job professionally and efficiently.
"Although the overall budget for the Institute for Animal Health this year is NT$8 million, the shelter itself didn't receive a cent although we're a subsidiary unit under the institute," Lin said.
The 0.6-hectare shelter, which became operational on Aug. 1 this year, cost NT$24 million to build and is staffed with one director, two engineers, and four animal caretakers to take care of the current 380 stray dogs.
The best way to save the dogs at the shelter, Lin said, is to have more people come in for adoption.
The process is easy, he said. Anyone 15 years old or older can adopt a dog for less than NT$1,000 -- with a maximum of two adoptions at a time.
Word from City Hall
Despite the efforts, city councilors aren't impressed by the city's stray dog policy and performance of the animal shelter over the past three months since it opened.
New Party City Councilor Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊) said it seemed the city government cared only about killing dogs instead of offering humanitarian care.
According to Huang, the municipal neutering subsidy for male dogs next year will be down from the current NT$2.4 million to NT$800,000 and that for female dogs next year will drop from the current NT$12 million to NT$7.5 million.
The average feeding budget per dog has seen a steady decrease from NT$52 per dog per day in 1998 to NT$35 this year, and will plummet next year to NT$8 per dog per day.
The euthanasia budget, on the other hand, is expected to soar from NT$177 per dog this year to NT$550 next year,
The adoption process is also full of loopholes, Huang said.
"Some contracted veterinary hospitals take advantage of the adoption pretext to make a profit by allowing people to adopt stray dogs but fail to insert ID chip in them. Once they're recaptured, they'll come back to them again and they can apply for the NT$200 caretaking subsidy for each animal," she said.
Each contracted veterinary hospital receives a NT$200 daily subsidy for keeping a dog at the hospital, with a maximum of seven days.
If no one claims or adopts the dog after the seven-day stay, the animal will be sent to the Municipal Animal Shelter, where it will be put on the adoption list for another seven days before it is eventually put to sleep.
DPP City Councilor Lee Chien-chang (
"Who gives it [the city government] the right to announce that it will take away the lives of another 10,000 stray dogs next year?," Lee said. "The city has NT$12 million to spend in promoting the idea of neutering and adoption, how come it doesn't have the money to come up with a better policy?"
Lee added that the electronic tagging system also has problems.
"The city's 152 pet registration centers are allowed to insert ID chips but not to perform any medical treatment such as vaccination. This not only inconveniences pet owners, but also creates chaos in the electronic tagging system because there are at least four different systems available in the market," he said.
New Party City Councilor James Wei (
"Statistics show that the city captures an increasing number of stray dogs. In other words, more pet owners are abandoning their dogs," he said.
According to Wei, the city seized a total of 2,700 stray dogs in 1971, roughly 3,200 in 1981, and the number rose to 5,900 in 1991 and 11,400 last year.
New Party City Councilor Chung Hsiao-ping (鍾小平) called on the city government to review the current policy.
"The city has demanded each of the city's 12 districts capture a minimum of six stray dogs a day, or around 12,000 a year. It just doesn't make sense to make such a request since the number of stray dogs has gone down from 30,000 in 1998 to the current 18,000," he said.
Pet owners to blame
While some animal rights activists targeted their criticism at the city government, others shared different views.
KY Suen (
"They should condemn those who abandon their pets in the first place," he said. "All stray dogs should be killed to teach pet owners a lesson. They need to know that if they don't take good care of their pets, they're putting the pet's life in danger," he said.
Ku Chieh (
"Those who abandon their pets should be severely punished. Caning may not be a bad idea, because they not only sabotage our national image, but also deeply hurt the dogs' feelings," she said.
Liou Uie-liang (劉威良), German representative of the International Alliance for Taiwan Dogs (世界關懷台灣流浪犬聯盟), said Germany's stray dog policy can serve as a fine example for Taipei.
"You don't see stray dogs in Germany because they're all kept in the humanitarian animal shelters owned and run by private groups," she said. "Local governments not only provide them with subsidies but also strictly oversee their performance. Owners face either fines or jail terms if they fail to meet the official standards."
In addition, pet shops in Germany are not allowed to sell off puppies in a bid to curb the source of supply, she said.
Lin Ya-che (
"A better solution is to provide animal shelters free of charge to pet owners. I believe pet owners are sometimes forced to give up their pets because they don't know what to do with them."
Veterinarian Huang Jen-yen (
"Since killing enrages animal rights activists and adoption doesn't appeal to many people, neutering is a simpler, more humanitarian and viable solution," Huang said.
He added that the government should provide financial incentives to encourage people to catch stray dogs and get them neutered at veterinary hospitals.
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