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| Arvind and me catching up |
Arvind is our guest administrator on PETPOSITIVE on Facebook in September.
A lover of cats since childhood, Arvind will be focusing on animal cruelty the whole of this month.
Yes, unfortunately, we live in a world where unimaginable and unspeakable acts of cruelty are inflicting on innocent animals everyday.
And the monsters who inflict it on them are unmistakably human beings - the most dangerous animals in our world today.
The images and stories that Arvind will putting up are not going to be ugly - be warned! They will be extremely disturbing and even make your stomach churn.
But PETPOSITIVE believes that one of the best ways is to highlight them so that we can do more to end cruelty to animals whenever and where ever it transpires.
Here is Arvind in his own words:
"Hi, I'm Arvind. I'm a diehard cat lover. I can even remember crying and forcing my brothers to adopt a cat for me even before I attended kindergarten.
Dad and mum used to remind me about animals and the agony they went through during my childhood days.
At 13 years old I brought in a stray cat to live with us back then at the old Jalan U-Thant government quarters in Ampang.
At that time I really didn't have the proper food or medicines to treat a cat but we did our best for him.
One day he was on high fever due to a swollen wound. Dad and mum managed to admit him at a veterinary hospital until he was cured and returned home.
He was very attached to me. Then one day he was involved in a accident in front of our home with a motorcycle. He eventually died on my mother’s lap.
Like others, I suffered and cried a lot, thinking I could have done more for him when he was alive.
I was form 2 then. That was the moment my perception towards animal changed.
Since then, a packet of kibbles had always been in my school bag. I fed strays whenever I see them and at my school canteen.
I remember at once when I was on my way for tuition class at Brickfields, an accident cat captured my attention. I did not move from that place. I did not have a handphone that time to call for help.
Luckily on the opposite side of the road in a row of houses, a good Samaritan offered his house phone to me. I managed to call SPCA.
I waited there until SPCA’s driver, Mr.Samy came and took the cat.
Until I realized that my 3 hour tuition class was just over ( for me; it was my 1st time skipping tuition class for a accident cat and God knows what I'm doing).
After Form 6, I was offered a place at University Science Malaysia in Penang. I obtained my Degree in Social Sciences and throughout the 3 years there, I have been feeding the strays at my campus mainly Desasiswa Restu, Penang.
During the festive seasons I had to stay back and feed them as the canteen would be closed due to the holidays.
At times, I would buy pet food and provide to some stall vendors at the canteen including some of my friends to feed the strays.
It was a great feeling helping the strays. The vendors felt the same way too.
I realize some stall owners fed the strays well but some whom are abusive would throw hot water on them.
But I never had enough funds to help them. But somehow, saving my pocket money and with the help from my family, I managed to feed most of the strays I spotted.
But that’s the best I can do as I do not have place to keep them nor extra funds to provide medical treatment for them.
Upon graduating, I took 3 cats from USM, Penang to my home in Kajang.
Now that I have grown up and am working for a multinational company, I have not given up with my work with the strays.
At home my brothers and I have set up a pool fund where every month for the past 3 years we have been contributing a minimum sum of money for the strays.
Dad and mum had given us their full support to use our home to take care of some of the strays.
Up to the extent that once I even had as many as 26 stray cats in our home. They were mostly disabled cats - cats without an eye, cats with cataract, broken tooth (accident cases) and wounded cats.
There were also cats with tails that were chopped off and others.
Witnessing some of my cats dying (worse cases) due to pneumonia, brain infection and heart attack I begin to learn a lot more about them.
Animals are just like humans, they have feelings just like us.
Now I only have 6 cats, which are all castrated. I also did my part at my housing “taman” at Kajang where I live now, feeding the strays here and castrating many of them upon realizing that some of my neighbours are keeping their cats for the sake of their children’s entertainment.
Castration was done to avoid their population increasing tremendously.
Being an individual animal activist, I managed to re-home many cats and few puppies via friends and Facebook. I have also helped in contributing donations to a few animal shelters.
Yet, I still do not feel I had accomplish my mission and I don’t feel I had done much. Many more need to be done to stop the spread of strays in Malaysia.
Day by day we are witnessing strays around us and their eyes tell us their suffering from injuries and without food.
It is such an agony situation for them depriving them from their basic necessity.
Humans should be humane, basic rule of thumb is to help when a soul needs help.
People think that strays will be able to find food by themselves. Where is the logic in this?
Where is food for them?
Till now the government has not intervened much in helping strays.
I wish for a “zero stray” policy to be implemented soon in Malaysia as I have the dream to see this policy come into action one day.
The government should also implement forces like the animal police to safe-guard animals from their abusive or ignorant owners. This will also help to create more jobs for the “rakyat”.
Mahatma Gandhi once quoted: "the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
This simply means that a civilised nation is a nation without strays.
Talking about Malaysia's "Vision 2020" dream, the “zero stray” policy must be taken into serious consideration as a truly civilized country must not have high volume of strays.
This would indicate on the type of human mentality that lives within a country. One should ask themselves are we a 1st class country? 2nd class? Or 3rd class country? And are the ‘rakyat’ behaving like one?
It’s a big wide scope to understand when it involves strays, from animals in the zoo to the number of strays that live in a wet market.
There is so much more to talk about.
I have been witnessing an ongoing housing project in Kajang recently, where the trees were chopped off and the monkeys that live in the habitat lost their home and food.
Some of the monkeys would come into the housing area for food, and some baby ones died when crossing a nearby highway.
Where is the Corporate Social Responsibility that every company boasts off?
There is no proper guidelines on dealing with animal habitat rendered to the developer by the higher authority.
When a construction takes place at a forest or hill, please do remember to re-home the animals that live in it before exploiting their habitat.
It it very sad that some developers, and even the responsible authorities neglect their duties.
Hence, we need to educate the younger generation and the adults about strays, educate abusers/companies (not reported ones) on the legal implication for abusing animals.
It had always been the dream of many animal lovers including me that we wish to see the world without strays. God bless the strays!!
PET+BLOGSPOT is the ONLINE BLOG of the Malaysian Animal-Assisted Therapy for the Disabled and Elderly Association or Petpositive. Our stories are CURRENT, ACCURATE and RELIABLE. We offer both local and foreign news on animals, disability and the elderly. PET+BLOGSPOT was first established in October 2007. Our hits since then are now 250,000 and ever increasing! PET+BLOGSPOT is updated daily. Kindly note that views expressed in PET+BLOGSPOT are not necessarily those of PETPOSITIVE. You may also visit our Webpage by browsing: www.petpositive.org You can also find us in Facebook under PETPOSITIVE EMPOWERMENT. Please sign up as a FOLLOWER of this Blog if you haven't done so already in order to show us your kind support for our work. Thank you!
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