(CN): Animals Asia's Senior Vet Heather Bacon talks to Radio Australia

[Guest guest]

Animals Asia is continuing its rescue of dogs and cats from

Dujiangyang in Sichuan where earthquake authorities are implementing

a cull of all companion animals.

 

Listen to Animals Asia's Senior Vet, Heather Bacon:

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/programguide/breakfastclub.htm

 

Read Jill's Blog (Animals Asia founder Jill Robinson):

 

'These animals are my life'

 

Tuesday, May 27, 2008, 11:27 PM

 

At 2pm on Monday we arrived again at our temporary registration and

collection station in Dujiangyiang and found a queue already forming.

It was reassuring to know that our hotline was doing its job and

this, together with a local TV programme, which went out the night

before, was alerting local pet owners that help was at hand for their

dogs and cats.

 

The hotline calls had indicated that some seven or eight owners were

going to show up, but it was clear already from the queue that we

were going to see more than this. Sad owners were holding their

precious family members one last time before they would have to give

them up. What choice do they have?

 

Already the tented areas where they are all living are bursting at

the seams (the Government has requested tent manufacturers to

continue making 40,000 tents a day) and neighbours just inches away

are not always so tolerant of dogs. The authorities haven't had an

easy time - between the people who desperately want to keep their

pets and complaints from the rest, rumours of disease and so on -

clearly the dogs are not going to win.

 

But culling is not the answer and in Dujiangyiang at least we are

able to offer a little help and hope for people so clearly fearful

for the lives of their pets.

 

After setting up the veterinary table, our first visitor was a lady

holding her two small pomeranians. Miss Xiao Ru Lan told us their

names were Niu Niu (Little Girl " ) and Fei Fei (Fat Fat) - and we

found some humour in a bleak moment when we realised that Niu Niu was

the podgy one of the two.

 

Incredibly, during the earthquake Niu Niu had run away and hadn't

been seen for nine days - Miss Xiao finally found her quivering in

their damaged apartment, having found her way back through the

rubble-strewn streets.

 

She couldn't stop crying and said more than once " these animals are

my life " - and now she would return to a strange and sparse tent

minus the two companions that had been comforting her though such

hard times. She couldn't understand really why she had to let them go

and even emphasised how clean they were: " I bath them even in

winter " , she said sadly.

 

Next a little chihuahua - Wang Wang (Prosperous) - belonging to an

elderly man who was also close to tears. Clasping her to his chest he

explained that Wang Wang was his only companion now that his children

had left home - miserably repeating " I don't want to let her go " .

 

And yet another pom belonging to Huang Jie Yiang, who had sent him to

the countryside but then changed her mind when she read about our

fostering option closer to where she was staying in the refugee camp.

She was happy that her precious dog was being looked after and even

happier that she could come and see him soon.

 

At the end of the day, 18 more dogs had been rescued and transported

back to Qiao Na's Qi Ming Rescue Centre. We are beginning to struggle

there now too - the sheer weight of the numbers coming in is

worrying. When do we stop - how can we keep building shelters for

dogs when the land is just about at maximum capacity.

 

The funding too of course is always a concern - each enclosure for

approximately 30 dogs is going to cost in the region of US$10,000

(not expensive in Western terms, but a fortune here in China). But we

have to try. Although eating and drinking, the dogs are miserable and

confused and we have to release them from their cages soon.

 

Angela Leary

Media Manager

Animals Asia Foundation

2/F, Room 04-05,

Nam Wo Hong Building

148 Wing Lok Street,

Sheung Wan, Hong Kong

Tel: (852) 2791 2225

http://www.animalsasia.org/