AVA should guide the Town Councils on kindness to animals

Letter from Sharifah Abdul Jabbar, Today Online 8 Sep 08;

I REFER to “Youth step up for the animals” (Sept 5).

Let’s start a pro-active kindness movement by involving grassroots resources such as schools, Residents’ Committees and Community Clubs to instill a sense of empathy in our children, as well as their adult guardians, with projects that encourage children to interact, play with and care for small animals.

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) should also guide Town Councils to work with welfare organisations to sterilise strays and provide feeding shelters.

A gracious society is not just educated citizens and beautiful parks.

There is also humanity, kindness and empathy towards fellow human beings and the other occupants of this earth. Or have we forgotten this?

Domestic animals may not have economic value, but that does not mean their lives are worthless.

Change of heart
Be kind, your cat looks to you for its existence
Letter from Dr Tan Chek Wee, Today Online 8 Sep 08;

THE residents who care for the stray cats in the area where I live alert each other whenever “new” cats and kittens appear, so that they can be taken in for sterilisation, or rescued for re-homing if the kittens are too small to survive on their own.

Lately, there has been an increase in the number of abandoned cats and kittens. For example, within the period of one month, we found two, almost identical cats wearing identical collars, a white cat, as well as two kittens. There is still a tom cat that will be found soon.

Although these cats and kittens were wary in the beginning, they became friendly after a while, indicating that they had once been in a human environment.

Is it a coincidence that this spate of abandonment should occur before festive periods? Were these cats thrown out to make way for new furniture?

Last year, a friend of mine rescued a cat and her two kittens who were living among discarded furniture, with cat feeding bowls placed beside them. They were also rescued before a festive period.

Besides being run over by cars, some cats that hide in drains may be drowned or swept away during a downpour.

To you, it may just be a cat, but to the cat, you are everything. Please be kind.