The dingy wooden walls were covered in excrement. Maggots squirmed in plates of food that have been left out — uneaten — for days. The air is punctuated by tired howls and interrupted by short yelps for attention. For the dozens of stray dogs confined in this small shelter in Lugang (鹿港), Changhua County, this marks the beginning of each day in a building rarely visited by caretakers and seldom seem by the public.
There is no count of how many dogs come and go in this temporary shelter, but the non-profit Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST), which conducted an undercover probe of the building last year, said that for the many strays that are brought in, few leave.
However, neither the situation nor the shelter is unique.
Investigators at EAST said that local governments have neglected the problem for years. More than 90 percent of the 326 locations they investigated were found to be in remote and deserted garbage dumps, cemeteries or slaughterhouses.
Local governments blame the problem on rampant over-breeding leading to a jump in the number of pets abandoned over the last decade. Authorities said that overstretched local budgets meant that an increasingly smaller amount is set aside to deal with the problem.
The latest data showed that about 133,000 stray dogs were picked up across the country in 2008 — a 69 percent increase from 2003. In 17 counties, stray dogs are caught by garbage cleaning teams and placed in temporary shelters as more permanent housing is usually overcrowded.
As a result, private shelters are on a rise. Chris Ward, an English teacher, said he became the operator of a shelter in Taichung County after he realized that “authorities don’t give adoption a chance; they put the dogs down in a week, or two weeks tops.”
In 2008, 73 percent of stray dogs picked up by government shelters ended up being destroyed there. Officials said stray dogs are humanely killed if they are not claimed or adopted in seven days. In 2008 the adoption rate was estimated to be 14 percent.
“Some of the shelters are located in places people can't even find,” Ward told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview.
In the three years that he has run the shelter, he has sent 32 dogs for adoption overseas and has invested hundreds of thousands of New Taiwan dollars in maintaining the facilities.
“We had hoped to work the number down to zero, but more just keeps on coming in,” Ward said.
That's the problem that officials at the Executive Yuan agreed to deal with last November after dozens of activists, accompanied by lawmakers, protested outside its main gate. Earlier this month, a conference attended by local officials and county commissioners agreed to address this issue within a year.
But some officials told animal activists in private that progress has been slow because of issues over jurisdiction, while many local governments have simply refused to admit that it is a problem.
“Animals have no votes, they can't participate in elections,” EAST director Chen Yu-min (陳玉敏) said. “As a result, local politicians haven’t taken the issue seriously.”
She said animals and pets lacked regulation and government oversight.
“The government isn't addressing the core issue — which is that too many people want dogs but are unwilling to adopt,” she said.
The latest statistics compiled by the Council of Agriculture show that nearly one in four households in the country includes a pet dog. EAST said that more breeders are breeding ever larger numbers of puppies to meet the demand.
The industry is big business with lucrative returns. While there are nearly 1,000 licensed breeders, some estimates point to an even larger number of illegal breeders. Many of these illegal breeders are “puppy mills” that breeds puppies in large numbers with scant regard for animal welfare.
While newly sold pets are required to be ID-chipped and registered with the council, some said the law has seldom been enforced and has done little to discourage the illicit practice.
A proposed revision to the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法) in 2007 was heavily opposed by the industry after it included clauses that that newly sold pets would have to include documentation — including ancestor and genetic disease. The clause was later dropped.
To better control the industry, the council, which regulates animal affairs as part of its husbandry division, promised that it would create a new section focused on animal welfare. Last November, it also announced the establishment of new animal protection hotlines in every county.
Rosa Huang (黃蘊茹), executive director at the non-profit Animals Taiwan, said what pet owners needed was more comprehensive “public education.”
“People are fueling this demand by treating dogs like toys,” Huang said. “A lot of these new dog owners can't deal with ownership ... they don't know that it's a big commitment.”
“In the end, the responsibility of stray dogs lies with irresponsible dog owners,” she said, adding that she believed this to be an area that both the government and non-profit organizations needed to focus on.
Ward agrees. He has plans to devote more of his time to educate future pet owners on the issues involved with raising pets along with advocating for sterilization.
Next month, he plans to embark on a teaching circuit in Taichung County elementary schools.
“Hopefully, I can make a bigger difference through education,” he said.
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