Two people shared this with me today:
Ref: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/abandoned-2-weeks-starving-dogs-indonesia-eat-owner-142541221.html
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Seven dogs starved of food and water for two weeks are suspected of eating their Indonesian owner after he returned to his hometown in Manado from a holiday, local media reported Tuesday. A neighbourhood guard was curious when he saw luggage lined up at the front of Andre Lumboga's house, days after the 50-year old arrived back home. He approached the house, smelled something foul and called the police, according to a report. "His skull was found in the kitchen, and his body was found in the front of his house," Eriyana, a local police chief in Batam, an island off Sumatra, told VIVAnews website. Lumboga arrived home last Wednesday, but his body was just discovered Monday. "We suspect that the dogs were hungry, so they attacked Andre, because they had not been fed for 14 days," he said. Police also found bones of two other dogs, believed to have also been eaten by the hungry canines. Lumboga was from northern Sulawesi island, a predominantly Christian area, where the local spicy diet is famous in Indonesia for including dogs, bats and forest rats. (Reporting by Olivia Rondonuwu; Editing by Neil Chatterjee and Ed Lane)
It boils down to the question: Why keep them if you cannot manage them? It is about responsibility again. During the 10 years when we took annual holidays, we only had Mac and Bobby. We'd drive them back to my mum (who was living in Ipoh then) for baby-sitting and I would call from wherever we were in the world to check on them. Upon our return to the country, we'd drive back to Ipoh to fetch them back. If it was an overnight trip, we would leave enough food, but Bobby would howl all day and night, so we stopped going for overnight trips. Then, when we had the cats....it was a different story altogether. We stopped going for holidays entirely because we once boarded Cow, Bunny and Pole at the vet's (to attend a funeral out of town) and it was HAVOC for the vet's and I suppose, for the cats, too. Cow escaped and it took them several hours to locate him - apparently, he was just hiding in a corner somewhere. That was a nightmare, so no more boarding! Cats are usually so freaked out and stressed in a new environment, and cats are so adept at escaping. We've tried leaving enough food for the cats for an overnight trip, but Bobby would still howl. Now, with Bobby blind, holidays are absolutely out of the question, unless of course, someone reliable looks after Bobby and the cats. Last year, we had a free family trip to Kuching as my son was working there, but there was no one who could come feed Bobby and the cats, so my daughter and I took turns to go down to Kuching. The four-day trip became 2 days for my daughter and 2 days for me, so that our animals were never left alone. When we have companion animals, that's what we would have to do. They change our lives by providing companionship and love, so we too have to change our lives to give them the same. Over this Pet Boarding House tragedy, I hear some people are now contemplating just leaving enough food and water for their animals when they go on holidays. Some say, in a locked room so that they would be safe. Pros and cons, I suppose. What if a fire breaks out? There would be no escape for them - that's a nightmare, too, isn't it? What if something happens to us, and we don't return on time and nobody knows our pets have been locked in a room in our house? They can't escape and nobody knows about them. Another nightmare as well. Better leave word and leave the key with a reliable neighbour.
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