COMMENT: Animal welfare groups show Singapore at its best

THE last family dog peed over a stranger’s shopping. He was called Bruno: the dog, not the stranger. We never caught her name over all the shouting. She kept going on and on, something about her eggs and milk being covered in a poodle’s urine.

In fairness, she was half right. Bruno had cocked a leg and gone to work. I can still see him now, staggering towards the woman’s pushchair and relieving himself like a drunk in the street. The woman suggested that Bruno had peed on her baby, which was nonsense. He wasn’t capable of lifting his leg that high. He was a poodle, not an Olympic hurdler.

He was also blind. Old age had stolen his vision, just in case you were under the impression that we allowed our dog to randomly piss on other people’s shopping.

We apologised profusely, but the woman wasn’t accepting our apologies (and it should be pointed out that Bruno had only peed on the shopping bags, not the actual shopping items). In the end, my mother dragged Bruno’s lead and stormed off, not before shouting, “Have some bloody sympathy. The dog is blind!”

He died soon after (probably from embarrassment). But I thought about Bruno when I read a Yahoo article about the burnout suffered by animal welfare volunteers in Singapore.

To my mind, these people are gods, showcasing the very best of any modern, empathetic society with claims on being a genuine first world nation. They give their time – often for free – to help not just the less fortunate, but the less fortunate species in our relentless metropolis, looking out for those we often turn away from.

But some are dropping out. Their love for the animals hasn’t wavered. It’s the workload and the lack of appreciation from others. They found the job “thankless” and “pointless”. Their numbers are falling, despite the demands of the job rising.

Post-pandemic lifestyle changes harming animals

According to the wonderful folks at Causes for Animals, the pandemic witnessed an increase in pet adoption, as a bit of stay-home company. A pet used to be forever. Now it’s a streaming platform, something to pass the time with during COVID-19. Once people returned to the office, the Adam Sandler comedies were left on the Netflix shelf and the dogs were left at the shelters.

Post-pandemic life changes also saw more marriages and births and less time and space for the dog or cat. In a society of constant upgraders, the idea of upgrading jobs, homes and phones is nothing new. Now we’re updating our loved ones, from pets to people, treating the dog like a battered Nokia. Old Rex did his job, but have you seen the new iPhone 15, AKA the new boyfriend? He’s got more memory space and his name on a BTO flat. Like old Rex, he also adjusts his balls in public, but no one’s perfect, eh?

And that’s not all. In a strange Huxleyan exercise, animal shelters noted a higher return of older dogs, citing medical and behaviour issues, often to alleviate healthcare costs. You can’t do that when the new boyfriend becomes the old husband, eh? My wife would love to walk into Sengkang General Hospital and say, “Yeah, he was all right when he was young and fertile. Now he’s old, incontinent and costing me a fortune in medicine. And frankly, the balls-adjusting thing in public is becoming obscene. So I’ll just dump him at reception then?”

But we can’t. In sickness and in health and all that, unless it’s a pet, in which case, we drop them off at the nearest animal shelter and expect volunteers to administer total care. And then, we have the audacity to complain when the dogs at the shelter bark too much (this happens), or complain about dogs hanging around the new BTO housing estate (this also happens, even though the dogs were living there first), or complain about sterilised dogs being returned to their communities (this also happens, why can’t we just cull, cull cull?)

With animal friends like that, who needs to spend their time in animal shelters?

Nurturing positive attitude about animals

It’s such a shame and not just for the obvious, altruistic reasons. Scientific research has long highlighted the emotional, physical, and mental health of being around animals, which can lower stress levels and blood pressure. Simply playing with a dog or cat can elevate levels of serotonin and dopamine, which increases a sense of calmness.

But let’s not shy away from the ugly side either. Mahatma Gandhi was right. The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. His quote may be dismissed as trite and superficial, but generally by those unwilling to recognise our dubious track record when it comes to animal welfare.

As we step tentatively towards becoming a city in nature, the numbers of animal cruelty cases are rising. According to the SPCA, there were 511 cases last year – the highest number since 2020 (there were 324 in 2021 and 481 cases in 2020). The viral video of men brutalising a python, the kid throwing a cat off the landing, the regular demands for the culling of cats, dogs, otters, snakes, boars, monkeys and any other confused species still trying to figure out why its habitat has been replaced with a housing estate all suggest our city in nature remains a complicated work in progress.

Our saintly animal welfare volunteers are needed more than ever, of all ages, to nurture a positive attitude about animals, which comes through interaction. The more we interact, the more we understand, the less we fear. (It worked for me with Tottenham supporters.)

Coincidentally, I’m writing this column in Penang, where there are around 10,000 stray dogs on the island. They are an accepted way of life. Two nights ago, a pack of dogs were laying outside a hawker centre, in the road, snoozing and scratching themselves. They forced a large, black vehicle – it was dark, so let’s pretend it was a Mercedes – to slowly navigate its tyres around them.

When a country and its people can make room for both a Mercedes and dozing dogs obsessed with their testicles, then it’s clearly reached a higher state of enlightenment.

It's not a bad habit to cultivate.

As a society, we can only walk as fast as our slowest members, but ideally the members of all species. In Singapore, animal welfare volunteers make all Singaporeans look better.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 28 books.

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