Tou Yun-fei (杜韻飛) usually walks the dogs first or spends time with them before guiding them, sometimes carrying them in his arms, to the studio where he takes pictures of them.
It can take a few minutes or several hours. He then accompanies the dogs to another room and stands by them as they are put to death.
The photographer-turned-animal rights activist has been doing this twice a week for two years.
Photo: CNA
“I don’t tell people what they should do. My works aren’t propaganda or templates that instruct people, but I hope the images can inspire people to take action,” Tou, a two-time winner of the government’s Golden Tripod Award for photography, said in a recent interview.
Government statistics show that during the past decade, 880,950 stray animals have been captured and sent to the 38 government-funded animal pounds located throughout the nation. Of those, 718,814 have been euthanized and most of them were stray dogs.
Animal rights groups say the animal pounds are treating and killing the dogs inhumanely and that the government is failing to enforce existing regulations to protect the dogs. They estimate that government shelters kill more than 200 dogs a day.
Many people treat stray dogs as statistics, but Tou believes each one of them has a face worth photographing.
The photographer quit a well-paid job with a local magazine two years ago to photograph the stray dogs, an idea that he said began to form at least a decade or two ago.
Since then, he has photographed more than 400 dogs before they were put to death.
“Each is an individual with emotions and each has its own personality,” said the 36-year-old, whose pictures of the dogs have appeared in a local magazine, newspapers, exhibitions and on the Internet.
A humane process for euthanizing animals involves giving the dogs tranquilizers prior to giving them an anesthestic and drugs to kill them; but not all dogs are given tranquilizers, Tou said.
In some facilties, the cost of sedative tranquilizers has to be met by the veterinarians instead of the government, lowering the incentive for the vets to use the proper process to euthanize the animals. The animals suffer greatly, the photographer said.
The government-funded pounds often outsource the killing to private vets and organizations, so this makes it hard for the public to supervise the euthanasia and ensure that it is humane, Tou said.
There are an estimated 140 animal pounds in Taiwan and animals sent to the 38 government-run facilities are put to death if they are not picked up by their owners or adopted within 12 days.
Since he was a child, Tou has identified with stray dogs.
“I know that they, like me, desire love, but most aren’t able to get it,” Tou said.
He has had two dogs of his own.
Growing weary of the work environment after six years in the media, Tou said the thought of doing something for the strays resurfaced.
The photographer began contacting government-funded animal shelters and obtained consent from four facilities to photograph the dogs before they were killed.
Instead of taking pictures of dogs locked in cages or in the environment of the pounds, Tou chose instead to take portraits, which allow their faces and expressions to be clearly seen.
According to Tou, the dogs in his photographs have human-like expressions: Some look sad, some look proud, while others look thoughtful.
He said he chose to shoot the photos in portrait format because it “forces people to look at them and see them as emotional beings after the cages, chains and collars have been stripped away.”
“Even if you don’t know what euthanasia is, I hope you will want to discuss the issue after seeing the images,” Tou said.
His photos of the strays were exhibited at the New York Photo Festival in March last year and have appeared in major news publications, including the Chinese-language Business Weekly, the country’s largest business magazine.
The Control Yuan said in February last year that the Council of Agriculture had failed to monitor local governments’ management of their stray populations as required by the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法).
Only about 60 percent of all dogs in Taiwan have implanted identification chips — which identify the owners to prevent abandonment — and only 30 percent are neutered or spayed, the Control Yuan said.
The Control Yuan added that for four straight years, 19 counties and cities had failed to issue a single fine to pet owners who had abandoned their animals.
Defining his work as more than just art, Tou said his ultimate goal was to create a social movement.
“If we discuss the aesthetics of a photo, that can only go so far,” he said. “But if we hold a press conference or film the euthanasia process and publish it, it creates a social impact; it becomes a social movement. This is what I hope to create through my images.”
The photographer is now cooperating with animal protection groups and activists to call for a more humane euthanasia process and better policies toward animals.
Tou and his friends have also established a third-party monitoring unit to oversee the shelters and the killings.
He was also recently invited to a press conference in which he gave advice to animal management officials on how to improve the pounds.
None of this was part of his plan, Tou said. He added that the filming of the dogs, which he said would continue for another three years, had made him more aware of his role, not only as a photographer, but as an activist.
“I understand that it takes time for our education, legislation and administration to improve, but while the dogs are being euthanized, we have the ability right now to ensure that they don’t suffer,” he said.
“The problem in the end is not about stray dogs alone, but about how we should treat and respect lives,” said Tou. “As long as humans continue to see animals as subordinates, the oppression of animals will not stop.”
When asked about his ultimate goal, Tou said he places his hope in the next generation.
“I hope my images can reach children and teach them about respecting lives. I hope they can see them and know that each animal has feelings. And when their parents tell them, ‘That is a bad dog,’ they will think, ‘But that is not true.’”
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