#Arctic wolf drawing skin

Right now, anybody can just walk into a pet shop and buy a dog they want. The key lies in making it tricky to bring a pet home. Leaving pets on the streets is an escalating problem but not a difficult one to solve, say activists. This is why registration, some sort of taxation, and microchipping pets is important, says Shristi. As there are no repercussions for their actions-their dogs cannot be traced back to them-it has become convenient to get rid of unwanted pets. The sad reality is people know what will happen to their abandoned pets but they don’t care. They aren’t able to take care of themselves-they can’t scavenge for food and they don’t know what to do on the roads. Abandoning pets, he says, is perhaps the highest form of animal cruelty. “Our system fuels animal cruelty by devaluing other forms of life,” he says. Instead, the police have declared that dogs are a nuisance, a threat to the community. Dahal says people routinely abuse street dogs and get away without even a warning. We consider ourselves superior and our lives more valuable. It is no surprise to him because humans always put themselves first. Everything is a matter of convenience, even an innocent being’s life,” says Sneha.Īnanda Dahal, chairman, Nepal Animal Welfare and Research Center, says abandoning pets when they become aggressive, ill or old is classic apathetic behavior. “I believe, more than ever, that there’s no humanity. Despite Sneha’s team trying to convince people that they are responsible for their pets, most of these dogs invariably end up on the streets. Sneha’s Care gets many emails and messages requesting the shelter to ‘adopt’ their dogs as the family is migrating abroad or their dog bit someone and they are now scared of it. A dog isn’t a toy, she says, not something you can outgrow and toss out. Sneha Shrestha, founder of Sneha’s Care, a non-profit animal rescue organization, says when you bring a dog home, you must understand it’s a lifelong commitment. Earlier it was mostly German Shepherds on the streets but now they find Boxers, Pugs, Huskies and Labradors too. Sushant Acharya, veterinary technician who is a part of the Mobile Rescue Team at Animal Nepal, says they had been rescuing at least a couple of pet dogs a month for a while now but the number has gone up recently. This is not counting the dogs that have died on the streets or been abandoned in forests where they have been attacked by wild animals. Then, as seen in Kathmandu, their owners get rid of them.Īnimal Nepal, a non-profit animal welfare organization, rescued seven pet dogs in the past month. They beat the animals to ‘train or discipline’ them which in turn make them aggressive and lead to behavioral issues. Many dog owners keep their pets chained or caged.

Besides having specific feeding and grooming needs, how a dog turns out largely depends on how it’s raised. Every dog has a personality and will grow and adapt to its surroundings differently.

But they don’t understand what it means to have a pet at home,” says Shristi.

Everybody wants a fancy, good-looking dog. People take them for a walk and leave them tied to a tree or a pole, or they are put in cars and dropped somewhere far off so that they can’t find their way back home. And what follows is utter inhumanity: They are left on the streets. “Puppies get bigger and aren’t ‘cute’ anymore, or people discover that the dog has needs, that it needs to be fed, groomed, and occasionally taken to the vet,” says Shristi Singh Shrestha, an animal rights activist. What generally happens, say activists, is people bring in a dog for a purpose-to placate their children, to scare away intruders, or to keep up with that neighbor who got an expensive purebred.

#Arctic wolf drawing skin

They are often in a bad state-dehydrated, unable to stand or walk, blind, suffering from different skin issues, etc. Recently, animal shelters have rescued many abandoned dogs from the streets. But when we bring in pets on a whim or consider them status symbols or guards, we blur the line between compassion and cruelty. We might forget to take them out sometimes and they may soil our carpets but we still love them, and they us. They are our friends, an extension of our families.