Dog abuse!

On the fifth day of Chinese new year, just outside my house, I saw about a dozen of ruthless boys from around my neighbourhood riding bicycles throwing some firecrackers at dogs! By the look of their faces, one could easily deduce without doubts that they are not the typical straight A students. Instead they are probably (I’m very confident about it) sons of mechanics, labourers, hawkers, members of triads, you name it. So these boys picked on two innocent stray dogs sitting under a car parked next to the field opposite my house. And that car happened to belong to me. First of all, they hurled some firecrackers below the car. Then the dogs started running away in fear from the light explosion under the car towards my house for ‘sanctuary’.

I happened to be standing at my doorstep witnessing the entire incident. Surprisingly, the boys did not stop throwing firecrackers at the two dogs. One of them even turn aggressive and threw repeatedly at the dogs. Just to let you know that one of the dogs is pregnant! Just imagine I was standing there and he just did it thinking there was nothing wrong in hurting dogs. Furthermore, the dogs started to shake the gates violently trying to escape INTO my house.

Of course I was pretty pissed off when the boy did not stop his cruel act even though the dogs are already shaking my gates violently as a result of what he has done. I feel I could make a police report of the incident for causing damage to my gates. You might ask why I didn’t stop them. I did not argue with the boys or shouted at them but I could only stare at them because I don’t want to get into any trouble with these teenage boys who could be children of triad members. I could even risk myself being beaten up by those teenage boys.

A few months earlier, I believe I saw the very same group of boys in bicycles grouped in the field armed with long branches discussing about beating up the very same bunch of innocent stray dogs. These boys seemed to be very free and have nothing else to do! By the way, they were talking very loudly in Hokkien.and that’s why I could hear their conversation. Fortunately, the stray dogs did not come out into the field that night.

Now the point that I’m trying to raise is that these typical people that I know, they pray a lot especially on the 8th day of Chinese New Year around my neighbourhood but then these people shows no remorse towards animal cruelty. So what’s the point of praying? Again, these people could burn all sorts of incense and pray diligently and yet committed some heinous acts. Another example is on the 9th month of the Chinese calendar where Chinese would go vegetarian for that period. And you can easily see how they behave that time. They will just park their cars on the roadside and jammed the road without considering other road users. I’ve even encountered a couple of times where they could just park in front of your house and you will have a difficult time driving your own car into your house.

By the way, I’m a Chinese as well living in a very busy neighbourhood with a high Chinese population. I’ve seen enough antics and it’s really hard to respect my very own type behaving like some barbaric Chinaman who just came out from a ‘kampung’ for the very first time. But I’m not trying to say that acts of animal cruelty are committed exclusively by Chinese alone. I’ve also seen teenage boys from other races and even adults and even foreigners from a neighbouring country throwing pebbles, rocks, tree branches, and even a helmet! I’ve even read about some dog-killing sport in Afghanistan. It seems that human beings universally enjoy hurting animals.

I’ve even seen countless times children aged between 5 to 10 years old who deliberately threw sticks and stones at dogs with their parents standing next to them! And these parents don’t seem to bother about it. These parents would definitely only raise their voices when these dogs bit their children (I’d say deservingly bitten) and asked that these dogs to be put to sleep! After seeing all these sarcastic human behaviour with my very own eyes for many years, I’d not lay pity on any dog bitten victims anymore as a result of their own sarcastic doing and often time when these cases is reported in the newspaper, the parents would always claimed that ‘My children didn’t do anything to the dog!’