Thought I should pass this on. How quickly they (i.e. dogs) can fall from being high priced "cherished" companions, to disposable harbringers of disease.
There are still too many countries in the world that are "unenlightened" with regards to the humane treatment of animals.
May. 7, 01:08 EDT (From The Hamilton Spectator, Hamilton, ON)
Pets are killed in SARS panic
Vague messages fuel hysteria
Gady Epstein
The Baltimore Sun
Reuters
Stray dog is collared in Hangzhou, China. Many owners are abandoning pets in belief SARS is derived from animals.
In a grim reflection of this city's determination to subdue the SARS epidemic, authorities in protective suits are killing dogs, in some cases by beating them, while their owners are locked away in hospital wards as suspected or confirmed SARS cases.
Some pet owners, fearing that their animals could carry SARS, are taking grisly measures with their own dogs and cats, or abandoning them to a grim fate, since stray animals are also being put down by authorities.
Still others, fearing a violent end for their pets at the hands of authorities or neighbors, are pre-emptively asking veterinarians to euthanize their animals.
Wang Xiaojiang felt she had no choice last week but to leave town for southern China, escaping not SARS but the intense animal anxiety that she feared might claim the lives of her two Pekinese, Meimei and Pangpang, and her 13-year-old mutt, Wawa.
"I was afraid that if some of my neighbours got SARS or were suspected of getting SARS, that my pets would be taken away by authorities and killed," Wang said, speaking by cellphone from the winter apartment in Shenzhen that she shares with her husband. "The pets have brought us a lot of joy, so now when we have difficulties, I would never give them up. I would never surrender the pets to the SARS situation."
There is no proof that dogs and cats can spread SARS, but some local authorities and state media accounts have given the impression that domestic animals are a SARS threat.
Local government officials said that both abandoned dogs and pets of owners suspected to have SARS will be killed, and in some districts, the message has been vaguer.
"In remote districts, they sent out propaganda trucks saying you better dispose of your own animals," said Yin Tieyuan, a veterinarian at Sai Jia Animal Hospital in Beijing. "On that day people came here (trying to euthanize their pets), because they were afraid if they didn't do it, they would be forced to kill their pets painfully."
Yin said he turned away his would-be clients, telling them their dogs were healthy and shouldn't be killed, but he said many owners either searched for a willing vet or ultimately abandoned their pets. He said misleading accounts on state media have increased the anxiety.
In a story publicized last week by both TV and newspapers wrongly asserted that three ill dogs found in a western district of Beijing -- two of them foaming at the mouth -- were suspected of having SARS, Yin said.
The government should step in to correct the misinformation, as Hong Kong officials did early in that city's outbreak, Yin said.
"When people first started to abandon their pets, the health minister in Hong Kong came out to clarify that these pets have nothing to do with SARS, and very quickly people stopped abandoning their pets," Yin said. "But so far the Beijing government hasn't come up with any kind of announcement like this, so people are still throwing their pets out and abandoning them."
Or worse. In a well-publicized case, a Beijing man threw his Pekinese out the sixth-story window of his building but failed to kill it, so he walked downstairs and buried the dog alive.
Stories of animal hysteria range from state media reports of the abandonment of 183 dogs in the southeastern city of Hangzhou, to more cruel examples relayed by Beijing animal advocates, such as pet owners crushing their own animals under the wheels of their cars on back roads.
"A lot of people have done terrible things they should never have done," said Zhang Luping, whose Beijing shelter in the past two weeks has received some 20 to 30 abandoned animals, far more than normal.
The SARS pet panic has been jarring to many owners and activists, who have seen attitudes about pets gradually change over the past 20 years. One-child families, childless young couples and an elderly generation no longer living with extended families, have all built a growing market for pets, but SARS shows that many owners still have much to learn about how they should be treated.
"To have a companion animal at home is really new in many cities in China, and many owners of pets, they do not know how what is their responsibility to these dogs and cats," said Aster Zhang, country director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Government regulations do not make dog-owning easy. Beijing allows public dog-walking only before 8 a.m. and after 7 p.m., a difficult restriction for both owners and dogs. And the costs of owning a dog are high, including a first-year registration cost of $600 in Beijing, unaffordable for low-income city residents and equal to one or two months' salary for many others.
In the early 1990s, the $600 fee was even more out of reach for most Chinese, and walking a dog conveyed the same kind of class message as driving a BMW once did in the United States.
Still, they suggest Chinese society has some distance to go in the treatment of pets.
"Now with the SARS panic, people start thinking humans first, ahead of animals," Yin said.
"It's vital for the government to come up with some kind of guidance, instead of misinforming the people when dealing with these kinds of problems."
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