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Forum tackles problem of abandoned animals

The stray dog problem will never be resolved until the public learns to stop dumping unwanted pets, academics said at a public forum on animal welfare yesterday.

Most people assume that stray dogs are proliferating because the vast majority of strays are not neutered, said Fei Chang-yung (費昌勇), a professor at the department of veterinary medicine at National Taiwan University (NTU), which hosted the forum.

Debunking the myth, Fei said that a lack of food sources and the high incidence of canine distemper meant it would be hard for puppies to survive long past weaning without human assistance.

"It's true that strays breed, but most puppies they give birth to simply starve or die of illness," he said. "Most new strays are not born homeless but are abandoned."

To back up his claim, Fei pointed to research conducted by the Council of Agriculture (COA) showing that 16 percent of stray dogs in the country tested positive for rabies antibodies -- a sign that they had been inoculated against rabies at some point.

"We need to take care of the problem at the source -- - abandoned pets," Fei said. "Until that is done, all secondary efforts to control the stray dog population, including euthanization, TNR [trap, neuter and release] and rehoming will fail."

"We have gone from having no laws to enforce to having unenforced laws," veterinary science professor Yeh Li-son (葉力森) said.

Yeh was referring to animal welfare statutes that call for pet animals to be registered and chipped, a measure which, if enforced, could lower the rate of abandoned pets.

Su Bi-ling (蘇壁伶), an NTU assistant professor of veterinary science, said that reforms should be made in how shelters select dogs to be euthanized.

Dogs are euthanized after a certain number of days in the shelter, or if they have skin disease over a certain percentage of their body. Su said she would like to see that changed to take a dog's age, general health and friendliness into account.

"Some aged dogs are better off euthanized early because they will never find another home," she said. "However, young dogs that can make good pets should be given another chance even if they have some treatable skin disease such as folliculitis."
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