This is the central problem of all of the issues in animal shelter in Taiwan. The awareness of animal ethic and animal welfare is low in both the public and the government. The animal protection act has established, but the duty of catching stray dogs is the responsibility of two different departments of the government. It shows that there are no strict rules and clear regulations of managing the stray animals. Though the shelters have established, the officers and workers are not professional in animal related skills. The ways of taking care of dogs are more how the industry raising large amount of chickens with little attention to each individual. Most national shelters euthanize the animals and the ides of euthanasia is unethical to the public. To save the animals, no kill private shelters are established and the number of private shelters is quite high. However, many owners have only empathy and lack of knowledge related to the welfare causes more suffer to the animals. The idea of most of the owners and workers is more like as long as the dogs live with something to eat and drink, they are free from suffer though they might be locked in the cage for the rest of their life. People don’t know there is actually more concerns needed to be focused besides food and water. In my own experience, the owner of Wang Wang hires a worker whose job is to feed the dogs and clean their faeces. Without the volunteers, the dogs might never be cleaned or vaccinated because they are not what the worker is responsible for. The owner also asked the volunteers give the clean water to dogs only for drinking. Use the contaminated, yellow water to clean the dogs and the shelter in order to save the cost for clean water. Most of the dogs in the shelter have skin diseases or wounds and the “dirty water” might cause infection. From here I can see that the priority is the cost, not the living quality.

The change of mind is the most urgent step in order to improve animal welfare. The government and educational facilities should promote and educate the public with more information about ethic and welfare.