The phenomenon of pets being abandoned frequently adds a lot of burden to the society, experts point out
Abandoning pets, ignoring the law and losing civilization
● "2020 White Paper on China's Pet Industry" shows that in 2020, there will be 62.94 million pet (cat and dog) owners nationwide, and the number of dogs and cats in urban areas nationwide will reach 100.84 million.
In the past two years, some pet rescue volunteers found that the number of stray cats and dogs in rescue sites has increased, and many of them were abandoned by their owners.
● About 70% to 80% of abandoned and stray animals, especially abandoned pets, will not survive.
For the whole society, the behavior of abandoning pets will add unnecessary burdens to the society. For example, stray dogs are prone to fight, bite people, and may even spread some diseases.
● There are various reasons for abandoning pets. In addition to limited financial capacity, some are disgusting with pets, and some are abandoning pets due to objections from family members.
● Experts call on the majority of animal protection volunteers to transform as soon as possible. They should not only care about terminal rescue, but not focus on source control. The most important thing to prevent pet abandonment is to supervise uncivilized dog raising behavior and give full play to the power of owners in each community. , to raise everyone's awareness of being kind to animals
□ Our reporter Zhao Li
□ Our intern Feng Hanyi
The four cats in the family are all "white".
Regarding such "cheap", Liu Fangfang, a cat lover who lives in Xinjiang, bluntly said, "I don't want to take it" - the first two kittens were given to her by friends who didn't want to keep them; the third kitten was picked up by her father from the road The fourth kitten was adopted by the original owner after being abandoned by the original owner because of illness.
"Why do some people regard pets as treasures, but abandon them at will due to various problems?" Liu Fangfang said indignantly, she believes that people should consider whether they can accept its naughty, life and death before raising pets , rather than abandoning it once it is found to be unsuitable, "the life of a pet is also very precious."
Liu Fangfang's complaints were not made out of nothing.
The "2020 White Paper on China's Pet Industry" shows that in 2020, the number of pet (cat and dog) owners nationwide will reach 62.94 million, and the number of urban dogs and cats nationwide will reach 100.84 million.
In the past two years, some pet rescue volunteers have found that the number of stray cats and dogs at rescue sites has increased, and many of them have been abandoned by their owners.
Recently, a number of industry insiders interviewed by reporters from the "Rules of Law Daily" pointed out that abandoning pets is not only immoral, but also adds a burden to society. For example, after pets are abandoned, they may spread diseases, affect traffic, disturb and harm people, and pollute the people. environment, etc.
It is recommended to strengthen relevant legislation, increase penalties, and at the same time play the role of social autonomous organizations, allow the public to participate in social supervision, and protect the safety of pets.
Sick pets are vulnerable to abandonment
Society picks up the pieces
Liu Fangfang still remembers the scene when the third kitten was brought home by her father.
The kitten is covered in cat ringworm, and its ears are full of ear mites.
She took it to check and found out that she also had feline feline and trichomoniasis.
The fourth kitten was also abandoned by the original owner because of the cat's belly.
The eight or nine-month-old cat is too thin and poorly developed. The original owner has not given it any care and has not been vaccinated.
"Actually, after I adopted these two cats, it only took me two months to cure their feline belly, which is not difficult." Liu Fangfang said that it was irresponsible for the original owner to abandon them. .
Like Liu Fangfang, Li Min, who runs a cat house in Zibo, Shandong, has seen too many "deaths caused by separation" and "really distressed these kittens."
"What annoys me the most is that a person brought a cat to breed before, and found that the cat was sick after breeding, so he had to throw the pregnant cat away. Later, he added my WeChat and asked me if I would accept it? At that time, my family had already There are more than 20 cats, so I didn't want them at first." Li Min said, "As a result, he sent me videos of him throwing and beating cats, so I had to go to him immediately and get the cats back."
When Li Min brought the kitten back, he found that it was only a minor illness, but its teeth had already been broken by the original owner.
Later, Li Min went to the veterinarian to treat the cat and recovered quickly.
But how can you rescue all the abandoned pets by yourself?
This is where Liu Fangfang and Li Min feel in their hearts.
They are well aware that there are still many pets suffering from abandonment.
Abandonment, for pets, is a disaster; for society, it is a hidden risk.
Du Fan, president of the Wuhan Small Animal Protection Association, Hubei Province, told reporters that about 70 to 80 percent of abandoned and stray animals, especially abandoned pets, will not survive.
For the whole society, abandoning pets will inevitably add unnecessary burdens to the society. For example, stray dogs are prone to fighting, biting people, and may even spread some diseases. "These evil consequences have been passed on to the society. It is society that does the bottom line and cleans up the mess, so abandonment is very immoral."
There are various reasons for abandonment
Mainly due to time and money
Why do you ruthlessly abandon them after raising pets?
The reporter interviewed a number of abandoned pet owners and found that they abandoned their pets for a variety of reasons. In addition to their limited financial ability, some people disliked their pets and abandoned them because of their family members' objection.
Xiaomei is a salesperson at a clothing store in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. In April this year, she abandoned the Bichon Frise that she had raised for more than two years.
"I really can't afford it. In those days, he had diarrhea all the time. He went to the hospital before and spent five or six hundred yuan for treatment. I really don't have that much money." Xiaomei said. If you can't sell it, the wages will drop again and again, and it will be difficult to support yourself, so don't mention the dog.
Because she could not find an adopter, Xiaomei finally abandoned her pet outside a stray animal rescue station, hoping that the staff would take the puppy in.
Du Fan noticed that the problem of abandoning pets has always existed, but due to the epidemic, the behavior of abandoning pets has increased in recent years.
"At present, the abandonment rate of cats is much higher than that of dogs. Nowadays, many young people, especially those who have just started working, feel lonely and want to raise small animals, but if the cost of living increases, it is easy to discard the animals. Pets, kittens are the first choice, because cats do not need to be walked outside like dogs, which greatly increases the number of potential cat abandonment."
A staff member of the health care department of a hospital in Beijing analyzed to reporters that there are various reasons for abandoning pets, the primary reason being the economic situation.
Keeping pets is not only time-consuming, but also requires a lot of economic investment. If it is not a precious breed, or it is an adult, it is not easy to sell it for a good price.
Secondly, many people do not know enough about keeping pets.
Some people are inexperienced, and the concept of raising pets is still at the stage where they only need to feed their pets, but after raising them, they find that dogs will "demolition" and cats will "parkour", which does not make people worry.
In addition, major changes in the owner's family, such as moving house, illness or family pregnancy, are also a factor that affects whether pets are abandoned.
In addition, if people around you have a low tolerance for barking, the owner may also abandon the dog under pressure.
The owner of a pet store in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, encountered a situation where the owner abandoned the cat because he didn't want the cat to spoil the new house after moving.
"There are reasons for not wanting to keep them, such as allergic to pet hair, troublesome for pets, etc."
Although many animal rescue centers and shelters have started the practice of "adopting instead of buying", helping many abandoned pets find new homes, "second abandonment" or even "multiple abandonment" has made some pets re-abandoned again. Displacement is not uncommon.
Du Fan once rescued a puppy, which was adopted 3 times and returned 3 times.
"The first time, the adopter felt that the puppy's habits at home were not good and could not accept that it was urinating and urinating everywhere in the house. This was due to the behavior of the pet; the second and third time, I told the adopter in advance, The puppy arrived in a new environment and needed to adapt for a while, but the puppy was returned because the adopter's family believed that the addition of an animal brought a lot of trouble to family life." Du Fan recalled, "But , We have an agreement with the adopter that no matter what reason the adopter does not want to keep, we will accept them to return the pets, as long as they are not abandoned outside."
Abandoning single-end salvage
Source control strengthens supervision
In order to prevent and treat abandoned pets, relevant departments are also improving relevant laws and regulations.
From March 1 this year, Hubei officially implemented the "Hubei Province Animal Epidemic Prevention Regulations (Revised)" (hereinafter referred to as Hubei Epidemic Prevention Regulations), which stipulates that within the administrative area of Hubei Province, it is forbidden to abandon dogs and cats raised.
The people's government at the county level shall organize the shelter, epidemic prevention, and harmless treatment of abandoned, stray, ownerless, or confiscated dogs and cats.
If a dog is abandoned, the dog registration authority shall take in the dog and impose a fine of not less than 1,000 yuan but not more than 5,000 yuan.
"It's definitely a step forward to explicitly prohibit pet abandonment in local regulations. But the current problem is that abandonment is difficult to track, and administrative penalties that are too light may not be enough to stop or prevent them. Guo Peng, director of the Animal Protection Research Center of Shandong University, said.
Qian Yefang, a professor at the School of Law of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, also believes that the advocacy and propaganda of Hubei's epidemic prevention regulations are more significant, but it is difficult to effectively prevent pet abandonment, because relevant laws and regulations are not easy to be enforced, and they want to be truly implemented. Punishment is hard.
"Actually, more and more local dog management regulations have written prohibition of cruelty and abandonment of dogs, but few of them are able to implement it in place and actually punish the behavior of cruelty or abandonment." Qian Yefang said that last year Shanghai had A case of administrative punishment for abandoning an elderly dog was mainly exposed on Weibo at that time, that is, the power of public opinion. It is also considered to be the first punishment for abandoning pets in Shanghai, and Shanghai has formulated many regulations on the management of dogs. years.
In her opinion, at present, the legislation on pet abandonment is not perfect, and the strength of each law enforcement department is relatively weak. , punishment".
Qian Yefang took the lead in implementing a "Haitian Model" in Haitian Community, Baiyang Street, Qiantang District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, that is, by cultivating and supporting community social organizations, formulating community conventions, and exploring the way to build ecological civilization and animal civilization from the bottom up.
"To give full play to the self-management, self-education, self-service and self-supervision of the self-government advantages of the grassroots, mutual supervision between neighbors is an effective solution. Relevant government departments should encourage owners to spontaneously participate in community self-governance." Qian Yefang introduced , First of all, there must be a written agreement. For example, a community agreement is equivalent to a moral restraint. "This common agreement says not to abandon or abuse pets. The next step is how to implement it. Now we are doing a survey of animal files. , going door-to-door to register pets, which is used to establish community animal files and comprehensively grasp the information of owners and animals.
In order to encourage everyone to take the initiative to register pet information, Haitian Community has created a "stray cat archive" applet, and also provides a series of considerate services for registered owners, including finding lost pets, temporary pet care, medical discounts and pet food group purchases.
In the interview, some people in the industry asked whether they could try to solve the problem of pet abandonment with technological means.
For example, Japan stipulates that practitioners engaged in breeding or selling pets must implant microchips in pet cats and dogs. Pet owners must register their name, address, phone number and other information within 30 days after purchasing cats and dogs.
People who have pets or animal protection groups are also obliged to implant microchips in cats and dogs.
In this regard, Guo Lin (pseudonym), a practitioner in the animal electronic chip industry, told reporters that the application of animal electronic chips abroad is about 15 years earlier than that in China. Animal electronic chips have been recognized by Chinese people since 2012 and implanted chips into animals. The technology has matured. Not only pets, but also animal husbandry and aquaculture are applying this chip to animals. Combined with handheld readers and system software in the Internet of Things industry, the individual information of each animal can be traced.
For example, a dog dealer pulls a cart of dogs, and some of the dogs are stolen. If a chip is implanted in the body, you can scan it with a machine. This is a good thing for the inspected unit and dog lovers, including animals. Imports and exports must also be implanted with chips, otherwise the customs will not release them, and animal chips will become common in the future.
However, Qian Yefang believes that although the chip technology is mature, it can only be used as an auxiliary means, and it is not enough to implant chips into pets without human execution and supervision. Only chips, but uncivilized dog raising and pet abandonment are still serious, so the key issue is still implementation.”
"The punishment can be increased, but it cannot change people's perception from the source. After finding the abandoned person through the chip, the owner may lose his pet for the second time, and even if he knows where the chip is, it is possible If you throw it away directly, it will cause more harm to pets." Qian Yefang appealed that the majority of animal protection volunteers should transform as soon as possible, not only care about end rescue, but not focus on source control, and the top priority of preventing pet abandonment is right or wrong In the supervision of civilized dog raising behavior, we must give full play to the strength of the owners of each community, raise everyone's awareness of treating animals kindly, start from the side, start from the community, first manage the animals in your own community, and then go to help others when you have spare energy. community, and jointly promote civilized pet raising.
(All pet owners in this article are pseudonyms)