The same reader writes again to share her views below. I can truly empathise with why she feels so strongly about NOT having community animals. It is based on her experience with their local council. If my local council were that mean, I also would not recommend returning any animal to the street again.
Thank you, Anon, for your sharing.
Dear Dr. Chan,
I would like to quote the four principles of Indian Spirituality which you quoted in one your blog postings;
“Whomsoever you encounter is the right person, whatever happened is the only thing that could have happened, and each moment is which something begins is the right moment, whatever is over, is over”
In the course that our path being crossed these past few weeks, if anything that had taken place might have offended you in any way, I sincerely apologize.
I believe our path crossed is no accident and there was a reason for it.
The local council in my area is an efficient mean machine. They clean up the streets off street animals very frequently during the nights. It does not matter whether there was a complaint or not but they mean business when come to cleaning up the streets.
That is why whoever rescue street animal in this area will personally take them into their homes and adopt them although their resources and finances are extremely tight. That is why those who can provide finances and other kind of help come into the picture. In our area this has been going on for a very long time.
But we all do not want publicity or to have anything to do with the media as it will interrupt what we do and in a way be ‘jinxed’ and jeopardize what we do. Whatever we do it has been working out so far and we do not want it to change. That is why invisibility is the utmost importance.
Majority of these kind souls are housewives, single mothers and students. I am especially impressed with the students and young people in this are on how they band together to rescue, spay/neuter, treat and adopt street animals in our area despite of all the constraints, hardship and inconveniences. What is great about all of this is that these young people are the future leaders of our nation. The women are the mothers of our future leaders. Oprah Winfrey always says that ‘ the hardest task of any parent is to bring up kind and compassionate child.’
That is why our fund in aiding these kind souls is not only limited to spay/neuter and medical cost only. It covers in all aspect to help one’s life in order to rescue, treat and adopt a street animal.
Some housewives have also pooled their resources together by renting out extra premises i.e. houses or flats in order to house the street animal they rescue and adopt.
We all share the same compassion and hearts for street animals. With tough economic times; cash is hard to come by. So we do what we do have to look out for each other.
These people who do things and deeds without expecting any rewards or returns are truly happy souls. No names no glory all but they do what they do for the betterment of the street animals.
I have the blessings of meeting so many people like that; in my rescuing abandoned and abused strays’ activities. These people are a joy to be around them as they illuminates joy and gratefulness whose ever lives they touch. In short, they have peace of mind. Always got smiles on their faces; laughter in their conversations. I suspect laughter in their hearts too.
These unselfish souls have a positive impact on me; makes me want to try harder to be better and not sweat on the small stuffs. I always feel uplifted and lighter in spirit after spending time with them.
George Bernard Shaw beautifully summed up what we all here have and share in common:
This is the true joy in life
The being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one,
The being force of nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making me happy,
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and;
As long as I live,
It is the privilege to do for it whatever I can
I want to thoroughly used up when I die
For the harder I work the more I live’
I rejoice in life for its own sake,
Life is no brief candle to me,
It is sort of splendid torch which I have got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
My vet’s cattery is always packed and why she finds it difficult to board patients; is because the ones she have in her cattery are the ones that their owners left them at her clinic, wanted them to be put down (euthanize) but she refuses. These poor creatures had no where to go so she took them in and care for them for life.
As you can see the people who banded together in our area share the same compassion for the abandoned and unwanted animals. To us rescuing a street animal not just taking them off the street but also caring for them for the rest of their life using our own resources and finances without appealing for funds or subsidies from others.
That is why our concern for the term community animals. We are concern when people live in a fool paradise thinking that community animals are like those in Singapore and Thailand or community animals in US the dumping of unwanted animals will increase even more on our streets. As it is due to hard economic times we have in recent months had seen a significant increase in dumping of unwanted pets all around us.
Thank you again Dr. Chan for your indulgence. I feel privilege that our path had crossed. I apologize if I have offended you in any way. Like you say ‘we say our piece and we move on’
Thank you for not revealing our identities. We prefer to remain unknown and invisible. God bless all the animals and all the humans who cared for them.
I also understand the need for this reader to remain anonymous. It is so sad that some rescuers have to remain so because revealing their identities might jeopardise all the good work they are doing or worse, bring harm and destruction to the animals they care for.
Not so, when it comes to the welfare of animals and those who are weaker. And why so? I think it is because mean (ignorant?) humans bully and victimise the weaker beings and place them under their mercy. Or more accurately, the lack of it.
This clearly reminds me of the time when my son was unjustly penalised by his teacher. I held back my complaint until I could not take the nonsense anymore. The day I went in to lodge a complaint to the headmistress, as gently as I could, that very day, my son was made to stand up in class and ridiculed by the teacher.
That had been my fear.
That afternoon, I went to the Education Department, and did everything I could to transfer both my children out of that school before the teachers harmed them any further.
Isn’t it sad when humans take it out on the weaker ones? That’s called bullying and being extremely cowardly.
It is even sadder when it is TEACHERS who do such things. Thankfully, not all teachers are like that. Only a “select” few, as in all professions, there will be the bad apples who got through the filter!
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