To neuter or not to neuter, help is at hand

Here is an interesting letter to the editor that appeared in the Jordan Times today …. Thank you Jeremy Hulme of SPANA for offering free neutering services for cats and dogs, be they pets or strays, at the Spana Jordan offices, tel 5865451, located south of Amman in Wadi Seer >

If I can just get hold of that beautiful Burmese cat, no doubt someone’s pet, I saw wandering the streets around my house with the telltale sign of flattened fur around its neck where once a collar used to be, I shall have him checked out. Sadly many foreigners at end of contract in Jordan seem to think that the costs involved in taking their beloved pets with them is not worth it, so to ease their conscience, they release them on to the streets of Jordan to fend for themselves if no home is found; aka the little puppy I saw kicked down a wadi at the Dead Sea by a young East European man driving a diplomat's car last summer! But this is but a small part of the stray animal problem in Jordan. At least it is being talked about and institutions such as SPANA Jordan, The Humane Centre for Animal Welfare run by Margaret Ledger and others are doing tremendous work to bring this issue to the attention of the general public and authorities concerned.

The burdens of man’s inhumanity to all living things is simply mind boggling …. So we do what we can, through action or simply words, in the small hope that something somewhere will change for the better ….. even for a cat.

With reference to the comments by Fakhri Kawar regarding stray dogs, in the “Arabic press commentaries” (The Jordan Times March 23, 2009), surely the writer unintentionally produced his own solution when he said: “In Europe the situation is different as people… take care of them.”
As a chief executive of the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA), I can assure him that the problem of stray dogs and cats is the same across Africa, the Middle East and even parts of Europe. Yet, it has been proved time and time again that simply shooting or poisoning the animals is not the answer.
While irresponsible owners allow dogs and cats to bread indiscriminately, the offspring will simply repopulate any area where there is food. The solution is simple: the education of owners to neuter and control their animals.
SPANA Jordan will undertake this procedure free of charge (telephone number 5865451).
If people refuse to neuter and control their animals, there will always be problems of stray and semi-wild dogs attaching children and livestock, and causing road accidents.
Jeremy Hulme,
CEO SPANA-London

29 March 2009

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