Big Yellow (大黃) and Little White (小白) are a fair deal better off than your average stray dog in Taiwan. They may not have owners, but you would never know it from the faux-diamond-studded collars around their necks or their impeccably shiny coats.
The homeless Big Yellow and Little White are in fact loved and cared for by an entire community. Along with several other strays, a Taipei County community considers them “community dogs” and cherishes them appropriately.
Patricia Kortmann, who moved to Taiwan from Germany almost two decades ago, said she started the idea with two expatriate friends in a Taipei County mountain community near Wulai (烏來) about a year ago.
The idea, she said, was to help strays rather than send them to shelters where animals are destroyed if not claimed by their owners or adopted.
In the past, residents of the community would call in the county dog catchers to deal with strays that wandered into the area. At Taipei County shelters, such animals are destroyed after seven days.
“We would fight with the dog catchers. Then finally we were able to convince the Sindian City Government and the management to stop the dog catching service in our community on the condition that we would take care of the dogs,” she said.
And so the concept of community pets took shape.
Today the community takes care of 10 dogs and several cats. Although the animals have no owners, they are fed and cared for by residents on a daily basis.
Driving around the hilly community, one sees cat “hotels” on pillars along the side of the road, built by residents and other volunteers.
Kortmann declined to disclose the name of her community, saying that people occasionally exploit the residents’ goodwill by taking their unwanted pets there to dump them.
She estimated that between 15 and 20 dogs are abandoned at her community each year. She believes most of the dogs are dumped by nearby puppy-breeding facilities, noting that many of them cannot be sold because of physical defects.
The community has adopted the catch-neuter-release (CNR) model, catching stray animals, paying for them to be neutered or spayed and vaccinated, and releasing them where they were found.
The CNR method, which has been introduced in cities all over the world as authorities seek a humane option to deal with strays, is effective, advocates say, because the animals can no longer breed and because they stay in one general area due to their territorial instincts, discouraging other animals from settling there.
The strays can then be cared for as “community dogs,” without owners but with an area where they are relatively safe and feel at home.
Not everyone in Kortmann’s community was happy with the idea at first, but gradually the effectiveness of the CNR method became evident, she said, and the group won wider support.
Early this month, the group set up a booth at the community’s annual fair to raise funds to care for the animals by selling donated goods.
One woman bought a pooper-scooper for NT$50 and donated another NT$300.
Many residents in the community know the animals by name and on the group’s blog, residents can discuss the animals. In one message on the site, a resident said her family was upset when one of the community dogs, Lucky, went missing. She said they were later relieved when the dog turned up again.
In addition to CNR, the group looks for homes for the strays they find and sponsors workshops to train pet owners to handle their animals, said Kortmann, who also cares for seven rescued dogs at home.
And to promote responsible ownership, the group has set up boxes around the area with plastic bags to remind dog owners to clean up after their pets.
The effectiveness of the CNR and “community pet” program has drawn the attention of another community nearby, which is interested in adopting the same measures, Kortmann said.
The next goal for her community is to convince nearby farmers to stop using metal animal traps that have maimed or killed many dogs and cats in the area.
Last month, as Kortmann and her husband walked their dogs in the woods, two of the dogs were caught in traps. When her husband tried to free them, his fingers were also caught.
After helping more than 70 dogs since the community began its program, Kortmann said the lesson to learn was that “anything is possible with the support of your community.”
“It is hard at first, but as people see what you are doing is genuinely good for the community, they will warm to it. In fact, they might even end up helping you,” she said.
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