No To Christmas Pets!

A good article from MSN dot com, read it here. A notable quote:

"The dogs that are readily available at Christmas are the kind you probably don't want. Puppy mills grind out thousands of puppies to meet holiday demand. They're the dogs you find in pet stores and malls—cute as puppies but often inbred, poorly socialized, and more prone to genetic health problems like allergies or bad hips or to behavioral difficulties like compulsive barking or chewing."

Keep this in mind, folks!

Dear Sheena

Sheena has been receiving quite a lot of good support from Malaysians since the campaign started. Here are two interesting emails Sheena received recently:

From Melissa Jane:

Hi there, I'm Melissa. I'm an animal lover who ownes two very special cats, one's paraplegic & the other was born with onlylegs. I read your report/news about Sheena the German Shepherd who has beenput down in the Monday newspapers.

I feel really bad that she suffered like this. It's just cruel & mean...Whydid the owner keep her when he can't take care of it? Doesn't mean if she'sold, you just leave her without food or water! I'm really disgusted withthis dogs owner for treating him like this. Imagine if he was Sheena? Howwould he feel...? If he really can't take care of dog because he's "busy,"or somthing like that, why tie it up & leave it there without any food orwater??? I really wana know why...Just give it to his friends or the SPCA.

I'm barely 16 years old. I know animal cruelty as much as anybody else. Iknow how it feels sitting on my own faeces with an empty stomach, tied upwith no food or water. It's painful...A slow painful death. The owner shouldbe tied up & starved!!! He deserves it...I feel much better that Sheena wasput to sleep coz she ain''t happy what she was going through. It's just horrible!

Both the pictures of Sheena really breaks my heart...She was just skin &bones. She was sitting like that because she was just too weak to standup...My cat who is paraplegic, is a Siamese. She had a car accident when shewas only one week old. Onbe of her ribcage broke and her spine & her bothback legs were paralized & she had internal bleeding & bladder problems. Butnow, she's well & healthy. Walking better now. Everyday we give her lots ofvitamins to maintain her bladder & also give her lots of love & affection.She's really a beautiful cat...

Now for the government, I don't know what they are doing. $200 fine and 6moths jail????? No way! That's not good enough! Big deal! What is $200 toyou...? They should raise the fine & jail term! Doesn't matter if theowner's income is low or high. NO ACCEPTION! Anyone who's cruel to animals,gets $10,000 fine plus two years in jail! No more, no less. And yes, alifetime ban of animal ownership. That's it...Treat them as criminals. Likehe killed someone. Animals are part of our world...They are like children.You keep them & take care until they grow old and die. Don't keep them just because they are cute & cuddly like soft toys that you can throw around & do cruel stuff to it. No! No! No!

I'm really supporting you coz Malaysia & the rest of the world has got to stop this. This is really unnecesary...I wish I was there to make Sheena'sowner suffer.

If I do go out and find places where you can put up campaign posters, I'll let you know as soon as possible.

When I look back at Sheena, makes me wana cry. She looks so messed up, weak,tired & hungry.

Thanks Melissa for your support. The support of the youth is very important, and it's amazing that you'd write in like this and be a voice for the youth. Let's get more youth involved!

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From Cynthia:

Hello, Apart from increased penalties, we should work toward zero pet trading. People should not make a present of a pet, especially to a child. They will be giving a commitment and not a cheap one at that. Create a penalty for people who throw out animals. For ennforcement create our own animal precinct. Just some ideas.

Thanks Cynthia. Zero pet trading is an awesome idea, although i wonder how open our market economies would be towards such a move. Unfortunately, the amount of inbreeding and unhealthy pups/kittens born is on the rise. Not only that, breeding of pedigrees (see Shoba's post on the cats!) is run like a shoddy business, with bad health environments, and bad emotional scarring on the animals. When we watch the Matrix and see how robots "harvest" and "breed" human beings, we are shocked. Why should we be? We do the same with animals.

And with the upcoming Christmas celebration coming up, let's remember that a pet is for life, not just for Christmas.

Happy Christmas and New Year everyone.

Living It Red Remembers Sheena

Shoba Mano of the campaign will be featured on REDFM 104.9 on Friday, 23rd December 2005 at 11 am. The show, Living It Red, with host Ida Mariana, seeks to highlight the plight of urban animals, stray or domestic. Guests will be invited to call in to tell of their own experiences of animal abuse and similar situations. Do tune in, there might be some unexpected guests!

Chinese Translators Needed

Hi all,

According to Sabrina Yeap of SPCA at least 90% of the abuse cases occur among the Chinese. As a result the Chinese media has emerged as a strong voice to educate their readers on the ethical treatment of animals. We are grateful to the Chinese newspapers, magazines and even radio and television stations that have been just as sympathetic to the plight of animals as the English media.

But our friends in the Chinese media need your assistance to translate both the SPCA website and this Remembering Sheena blog into Chinese as an alternative webpage to English. Many Chinese newspapers have already agreed to place a link on their homepage to the SPCA website as well as the Remembering Sheena blog. But they do not have anyone who is sufficiently proficient in both languages to do the translation. If we get expert help it would cost us money. So we appeal to volunteers to help translate the contents in our website and blog. If you can help, please write to remembersheena@gmail.com

Thank you.

Latest Update On The Irresponsible Cat Breeder's Case

On November 24th and 25th, the Malay Mail reported the case of Abdul Rashid Mohd Othman, 50 who was charged for cruelty towards the cats he confined in allegedly horrific conditions for the purpose of breeding.

Abdul Rashid, an automobile company employee, has been rearing pedigree felines for the past 15 years to sell at pet shops and to cat lovers. He is also a member of an online cat fan club! These are the photos that did not appear in the local media. These photos were obtained from SPCA to show the condition of the cats when the SPCA went with the Veterinary Services officers to investigate a complaint on animal abuse. These were the pathetic faces they found at Abdul Rashid's house at Sri Petaling.

According to the Malay Mail report the enforcement official claimed that the odour of faeces and urine at Abdul Rashid's house was so overpowering that he and his colleagues had to repeatedly go outside for fresh air.

In his defence all Abdul Rashid could say was that the Veterinary Services and SPCA officials had substituted his healthy cats with sick ones in a so-called attempt to frame him. Bizzare? Go figure. The trial of this case is set for January 3, 2006.

My2cents.............

Greetings mankind....

Hi! My name is Yana and I am very new to this sort of thing. I usually give a piece of my mind the old fashion way, face to face. So, I apologise if the outcome of this post would offend anyone in anyway. Ok, now that the disclaimer is out of the way, lets get down to business. (heehee)Let me briefly tell you guys a bit about myself. I am 28 years old, very happily married and living in OUG, KL. I am working as a Customer Service Officer and so far, I am loving my work now. So, I can safely say, my life is pretty ok, minus the usual problems of shortage in the pocket area but hey, I think I'm doing pretty well compared to others. I shouldn't complain. Anyway, my first encounter of abandoned and cruelty to animals was when I was eating at this restaurant with my family and I saw a lot stray dogs that looks absolutely dreadful! At first, to tell you the truth, I was rather afraid that they might attack me or something, but when I really take a long look at them, I saw that they are more afraid of me! They look so thin and sickly. At that time I gave them some of my food and at the rate they were eating its as if they havent eaten for ages! My heart goes out to them. I know that at least that day they got food to eat but what about the days to come? Then I realised that this situation needs attention.As the years past by, things got worse. Just when I thought the more educated people are, they would be more compassionate. I guess I was wrong. This is when I decide this is not the time to just sit back and see what the government's next action. We, united would be the only salvation for our helpless friends. And this is the main reason I agreed to be apart of this noble society.

LETS MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!

Morning Affair

Red FM will be featuring the Remembering Sheena Campaign on its Red Morning Affair on Dec 14th 2005 @ 0900. Sabrina Yeap of the SPCA (KL & Sel) as well as Shoba of the Remembering Campaign will be featured.

Official Launched

The Remembering Sheena Campaign was officially launched on Saturday (3rd December 2005) at the SPCA. Members of the campaign are grateful to all press members who turned up, even on the weekend!. And I apologise for Eddy's and my late arrival - I thought it was at 3pm, no excuse! (Thanks for the others who held the fort!). Posters and literature were distributed, photos were taken, questions answered, it was an awesome afternoon!

The Star has already reported our launch, do click here. On hard copy, it's on page 25. It's also reported in the China Press, but since I don't read Chinese, all I can say is that it's on page C13 on the hard copy.

For the press release, click here. For the Open Letter To The Chief Justice, click here.

On a related note, the SPCA were advised to withdraw Sheena's case as the Attorney-General's Chamber has taken up the case. We were advised that the SPCA complied in its withdrawal but intends to take a watching brief on the case. Mr. Lien, Sheena's owner, has 'disappeared' (well, FYI, we were advised that he still lives in USJ) as he provided a false address to the Selangor Veterinary Department officers, the consequence of which is that the summons could not be served on him. Now the judge has ordered for Mr. Lien to be traced and the summons properly served.

Mr. Lien, where are you? Don't be shy, do come forward!

What Do We Do At The Rally?

What do we do at the rally is the question frequently posed to us. So let me address this.

Rally on Saturday, 4:00 pm, January 21, 2005.

Those attending the rally will:
01. Hand in the signatures we collected manually.
02. Collect the educational flyers. And we hope once everyone reads it, you can sign up to be educators (only at your free time - optional) to go to schools and other places to train and teach people on the proper and ethical treatment of animals.
To register with us, please.

Some people have asked why the need to be present when they can just do all of the above online. The reason is that we need a large number of people present to show the public and media that the animals have a strong voice. Presently so many people have written to the press but not all the letters are published and there is no visual impact of how much we really care.

So your presence will make a difference

Shoba.