Pets under Lockdown
I’d like to open this session about pets with a comic of Tango’s. On the 4th of April, 2022, a corgi was killed with 3 swings of the shovel. What’s truly cold about this event is the comments underneath. We should be aware that the Chinese law specifically lists cats and dogs as protected companion animals. The killing of this corgi is first a violation of property rights, second was never approved by authorities, and third the corgi was never tested as positive.
When the owner was tested positive, she didn’t have enough food left for her corgi. In the hope that by releasing it, it would find a way to live on, she set it free before being sent on the bus that took her to the quarantine zones. In pursuit of its owner, the corgi ran after the bus, only to be intercepted and killed.
To me there are really two key factors in this incident. One is the careless disregard with which the dog was killed. The other is the horror when civilians are bestowed with power. In the followup investigations, community workers pushed the responsibility around, never directly answering the question of “who commited the murder”. This reminds me of another incident in Beijing. Three cats were killed without prior notification to their owners. The owner only received this news when she messaged the medics that tested her cats as positive. In an interview, the community worker stated that “If the cats aren’t killed, the owner will never be able to return. If she can’t return, the whole building can’t return. Then there would never be an end to the pandemic”. What terrifies me is her self-justified logic.
If the opportunity presents itself, I will do another session on this, today I want to specifically talk about all the difficulties pets face during the lockdown of Shanghai.
In response, to lockdown, dog owners employed the above two methods to help their dogs best cope with the stress of remaining indoors. The bright side is that dogs enjoy the extra hours of company they receive from their owners.
Moving on to cats. In my interview of cat owners, I gathered that raising cats didn’t pose much additional difficulty. There is, however, the concern that cats, contrary to dogs, will feel anxious because of the constant presence of their owners, and that owners should learn to give their cats space to themselves.
Some carnivorous fish that feed on live shrimps and smaller fishes have difficulty in acquiring food. Bellow shows a picture of an owner who very wisely asked his friend to bring him two whole sacks of shrimps in preparation for the lockdown. But even that is only worth 2 weeks of provisions. For some citizens like me that have been in lockdown since the very first day of April, will probably have no choice but to starve the fishes.
The reptilian community is also suffering devastating difficulties. For example, geckos need a daily fresh supply of insects, a supply very hard to obtain considering the currently active labor is not even enough to provide diaper and milk powder. After joining several discussion groups of buyers of reptiles, I gathered that many reptiles, though delivered to their destinations, couldn’t be received by their buyers because of lockdown precautions. Most reptiles died while being shipped back, causing a huge loss to sellers.
In summary, the biggest threat to pet owners is food shortage. This threat becomes a death sentence because at this time most humans can’t satisfy their needs. We are actually forced to place the needs of humans before our pets.
I do hope that tragedies like that dead corgi will forever be history and warning. Cruelty and priority have huge difference.
