RE: (CN) It's a dog's life for man's best friend

[Guest guest]

Unfortunately, extreme love can never compensate for extreme cruelty.

 

 

 

Even Saddam Hussein is nowhere near those people who torture, cook and eat

the cats.

 

 

 

 

 

_____

 

aapn [aapn ] On Behalf Of Cate

Thursday, July 26, 2007 6:53 PM

aapn

(CN) It's a dog's life for man's best friend

 

 

 

It's a dog's life for man's best friend

By Liu Shinan

China Daily

2007-07-25

 

Two dog-related stories appeared online on Monday, showing the two extremes

of people's love and hate for the animal.

 

A university professor in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, spent 100,000 yuan

($13,000) to hold a funeral for his dead pet dog on Sunday. A week earlier,

six men bludgeoned a dog to death before its owner's very eyes in a street

in Lanzhou, Gansu Province.

 

Though his unconventional behavior may cause repulsion given the fact that a

fair large part of the Chinese population is still poverty stricken and

100,000 yuan would be enough to put dozens of rural children through school,

the professor can't be blamed for he did nothing to harm anyone.

 

The cold-blooded killing of a dog by six men wielding heavy cudgels,

however, is something else.

 

In their defense, the men said they did not slay the canine without good

reason. One of them said the dog, a large collie, had scared his friend's

child and its owner had bullied the child's parents during the subsequent

quarrel. He said he and the five other friends of the child's parent had to

kill the dog because they couldn't count on the local authorities to stop it

being a threat to children, even though they had reported it to the police.

 

I definitely disagree with the brutal slaughter of the dog but I would be

speechless if the man asked me this question: " What else do you think we can

do for justice to be done? "

 

I certainly would not say something like, " leave the matter to the

government for a proper treatment " , as is often suggested by media

commentators. I know " proper treatment " in most cases would mean simply

letting the matter drop after a suitably protracted delay. The authorities

have much weightier things to attend to than trivial brawls between

neighbors.

 

However, disputes between dog lovers and their neighbors who do not raise

pets are not trivial.

 

Last week, a pet wolfhound bit off the left half of a 4-year-old girl's face

in Anshan, a city in Liaoning Province.

 

On August 31 last year, a nine-year-old boy was eaten alive by two

wolfhounds raised by a neighbor in Lishi county, Shanxi Province.

 

Injuries caused by large dogs are not rare: Such reports never cease.

 

Complaints about dogs have been on the increase, covering everything from

their nighttime barking, fouling of pavements, the threat to children and

spread of disease.

 

Most places have laws and rules on the raising of dogs that are generally

exhaustive enough to cover all eventualities. But the execution of them is

not always as it should be. Violation of the laws and rules is visible

everywhere but there seems to be little punishment.

 

For example, I have never seen anyone who failed to clean up after their pet

being punished. Of course, I might have missed the occasions when someone

did, but the droppings widely seen in public greenbelts suggest most people

are getting away with it.

 

Another example of weak governance in this regard: Beijing has about 1

million pet dogs but only 500,000 are officially registered with the police.

 

 

Pet lovers have the rights to raise dogs. But when their pets' actions

impinge on the interests of other people, they must be held accountable and

compensate those who are hurt in any way.

 

Most people do not raise dogs. In Beijing, for example, just one in five

households has a pet dog.

 

To the authorities: Please seriously address the problem of pet-related

neighborhood conflicts. Don't leave people's pets to the mercy of angry

victims of dangerous dogs.

 

(China Daily 07/25/2007 page10)

 

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<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2007-07/25/content_5442784.htm>

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