Situations where an animal is thrown onto the street, taken behind the shelter gate at night or tied to a tree can be avoided if chip registration is made mandatory for all animal owners, Anni Anete Mõisamaa told “Vikerhommikus “.
“There is a certain process before adopting an animal. It’s not really like that, that a person enters a shelter and ten minutes later comes out with a dog,” said Anni Anete of the NGO Mõisamaa Varjupaigad. “This is not a background check, but rather preliminary work. We cannot do a thorough background check on a person, we cannot go to a person’s home. Our process begins with submitting a request. According to the module, we already get quite a bit of “We have a lot of information about the person. Then we invite the person to meet us at the shelter. During the conversation we need to understand well what kind of person he is. We have to trust the person.”
According to Mõisamaa, fortunately in Varjupaikade MTÜ it has never happened that a dog was caught and then brought back. “Our percentage of animals returned remains at 1-2%, which means a maximum of a couple of dozen animals per year,” Mõisamaa said. “All kinds of things happen to people. But in this case, we really try to understand the person and we would be very grateful if we were still contacted and the animal was returned safely to the shelter. Something like that, that the animal is actually thrown out on the street, it happens very rarely. There may be two-three occasions over the years that come to mind.”
Animals cannot simply be taken from shelters, but a return fee must be paid for each animal. “We have it for 75 euros for a dog and 35 euros for a cat. It includes all the basic procedures to be carried out on the animal. Vaccines, chips and sterilization. But when it comes to the consequences we have short hands” , we cannot punish someone for mistreatment of an animal. But we always make declarations to the relevant authorities.”
“There may or may not be more problems when adopting a dog from a shelter than when adopting a puppy,” said Eliko Melb, a dog trainer and dog therapist. ” A person who wants to adopt a dog must consider that it is a responsibility. There must be time for the dog, skills to relate to him and certainly also money to provide the animal with veterinary care and good food. An animal taken from a shelter can have health problems so that a person has time and money to go to the doctor with the animal.”
According to Melb, abandonment affects every dog differently. “In any case, it causes stress to the animal. Loneliness can occur, it is difficult to leave the dog at home alone. The dog starts chewing, barking and howling,” Melb explained. “It’s always good to train dogs. It’s good for the owner to be consistent and calm.”
A dog trainer thought that the problem of dog abandonment might concern our consumer society. “People have moved away from nature, there is no longer much respect for animals and nature. An animal is considered a thing. Even according to Estonian law, an animal is a thing. I take an animal as a thing , if I need it, I use it and if no more is needed, then I will delete it.”
“A very simple thing that would help solve the problem of animal abandonment is chipping and requiring data recording of the chip,” Mõisamaa explained. “The benefit of this is that we can more quickly reunite animals that have strayed from their homes with their owners. But the other thing is that if the animal has the owner’s information on it, animal abusers could think before abandoning it. Human beings are much easier to take responsibility. But now it happens that we often find the animals tied to a pole somewhere or in the forest. There have been cases when the cat was taken behind the gate of the shelter in a transport cage at night.”
2024-01-08 08:23:00
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