When you come across animal-hurting animals

I’ve been interning for a week now, life has been hectic. By the time I’ve finished work, had dinner, bathed, I get so tired all I want to do is sleep. Besides, being sleepy at work and yawning away not only gives a bad impression, it is also super torturing. And you can’t skip class to go home for naps like in uni. Hence on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, I passed going to bed and decided to talk about something I hold close to my heart: Animals.

I was stalking the bf’s FB and came across this – someone from Kuching itself, blogging about how his/her animal took shelter from the rain in a neighbor’s house and ended up getting beaten up by a metal stick.

http://stopabusinganimal.blogspot.com/2011/03/dog-abuse.html

I love animals. But even then, sometimes I find it difficult to make my stand. I do not eat shark fin soup but it simply isn’t polite to barge into a wedding dinner with a table full of elders and tell them not to, out of respect. I love animals, but I’m not too sure where the answer is when I ask myself, “then why am I not a vegetarian?”. And when I encounter people I know, ie: a friend’s friend/relative/etc mistreating a pet, how far am I supposed to go to voice out my concerns? Would I cause awkwardness/disrespect?

The answer to those questions I have yet to know, but now I think I do know what to do when I see a stranger hurting/trying to hurt an animal, because that first day of CNY, I received practical training for that.

I stole this picture from BaoQi’s FB. She refers to him as ‘fox dog’. This guy actually belongs to someone else along the street, but he was abandoned (I’m not too sure if the owner abandoned him of he abandoned his owner). But because he was such a darling, I see the other neighbours in the area giving him food and shelter. I met him once as I was walking home, and he wagged and trotted along wanting to play. How could anyone not love him?

That day, I saw his ex-owners throwing firecrackers at him – those that spin around and crackle on the ground. He ran. After a while, he came back barking at them, and to my horror, there was a toddler, holding out a stick of fireworks (the ciplak kind that only shoots as high as the telephone post). A man was carrying that toddler and holding the toddler’s hand to aim the firework at the dog’s mouth.

I yelled at them from my grandmother’s house that was across the street and I could obviously see that the man was halfway into aiming those fireworks at me. He yelled back at me with the most foul of foul words I have ever in my 23 years of living heard, and I wouldn’t say I didn’t yell back. But the whole thing erupted into a fight between two families when my mom, dad, grandad, grandma and aunt came out. But for the record the had three whole generations out there watching the dog tortured already, and uh, two men came over to my grandmother’s house and started getting physical first.

I could go on and talk about how I wish he would die and burn in hell, or how that toddler would grow up and throw firecrackers at him in return, or many many other horrible things. I would have, but now, I realised that the way I reacted was indeed wrong. So rather than cursing and swearing, I think I would rather share my experience in case someone else might face the same thing as I did.

When you come across an abuser:

#1. My mother told me this: Don’t be angry with the wrong-doer. Rather, put your energy into helping the victim. Rather than yell at Mr.X (i will be polite, and for the sake of politeness I will not name him after swear words) I should have called fox dog over.

#2. Evidence is everything. So if you have a camera/ camera phone take lots and lots of pictures, or even better, a video! These will be useful when it comes to making reports to the authorities (SPCA/ police/ NGOs/ etc). I wanted to bang my head on the wall the moment I got home because I had a freakin camera there and then in my handbag. But instead, I chose to jump head first into the fire. But then again I won’t have been sure whether to call fox dog over or hide in the car and take a video of Mr. X. Well, I guess that depends on every respective situation.

#3. Think, think hard, then act. On my car ride back home after the incident, I thought of many many things. When Mr. X came over to push my dad, and my dad in return reacted very emotionally, it made me wonder what would have happened if a fight really broke out. It made me wonder, what if it was my 83 year old grandfather that was pushed and he fell down. It made me wonder what if he hurt my mother. It made me wonder, so what, after all that fighting, they could hurt the dog again later. Fighting was pointless.

If I had only thought before I got all emotional and yelled, perhaps it wouldn’t have been so pointless. I decided to involve myself, alone, but never did I think that others would be dragged in.

#4. Never go head on with the abuser. For my case, I already knew Mr.X was a mean person. I have heard of him knocking down his neighbour, verbally abusing people, beating his wife and shooting the fox dog using that toy gun with plastic pellets.

So why on earth would someone inhumane like that listen to me when I tell him to stop aiming fireworks at a dog? Wrong approach, wrong approach.

#5. Don’t ever ever ever lose your cool – stay calm. I lost mine for those 10 to 15 minutes as I yelled foul words back at Mr. X. It gained me nothing, I wasn’t thinking, and my reputation dropped to equal his. Plus, staying calm helps you think. Maybe I should have taken out my camera and went “whoa, your fireworks are so awesome lemme take a video of them”, zoom into his face, then call the dog over and flash him a big smile. Then, upload it onto facebook and give everyone his address.

 

 

There, my take on the things to do when you come across butt-faced heartless germs that are doing nothing but wasting space on earth, disguised in human form – because you’re not even worthy of being called ‘animal’ *sorry I had to get that out*