'Dog City'? What about 'Dog Country'?

Along with animal charity workers and many of our readers, we at the Compass were taken aback by the revelation that the Department of Agriculture is euthanizing about 600 dogs and cats each year.

What’s even more disturbing is that the government’s program of impoundment and destruction doesn’t even begin to address the enormity of the problem of roving dogs, feral cats and animal mistreatment in the Cayman Islands.
This embarrassingly third-world situation is the result of decades of averted eyes — willful ignorance and culturally ingrained disdain for fences, leashes and neutering.

This editorial board hasn’t often fought for animal rights; indeed, if we’ve been criticized for anything on that topic, the derogations tend to come from those demanding greater rights and protections for animals.

However, we recognize a clear distinction between animals and humans. When a conflict necessitates choosing sides, we almost always align ourselves with two-legged Homo sapiens.

Having said that, there’s nonetheless a commonsense distinction between treating an animal as if it were human, and treating an animal humanely.

Anyone who lives in Cayman cannot be unaware of the rampant acts of animal negligence or outright abuse of dogs, cats, horses, iguanas, sea creatures … anything that can be tied up, hooked, caged or trapped.

In the most severe instances of starvation, strangulation, abandonment, paraquat poisoning or outright torture, one can plainly see that what we have here — let’s not mince words — is animals mistreating animals.

Animal rights activists have worn out their vocal cords (and our ears), carrying on about dolphin parks, the niceties of blue vs. green iguanas, and the hundreds of protected critters enumerated in the recently passed National Conservation Law. When confronted with the ubiquitous mistreatment of ordinary dogs and cats — where are the voices of dolphin defenders?

While thousands of dogs and cats have been euthanized in recent years, the Cayman Islands Humane Society has been unsung, underfunded and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of animals it tries to help. Its spaying and neutering program is admirable but insufficient, given the relative size of the problem.

Make no mistake. We’re not for euthanizing any animals, but it is incumbent upon those who take such a position to come up with a better alternative, and, frankly, we don’t have one.

The responsibility for animal control should never have shifted from government to the Humane Society, nor to any other nongovernmental organization that must rely on fundraisers, fashion shows and the kindness of strangers to fund their activities.

In our minds, the list of legitimate public services is surprisingly short. It includes providing desirable or necessary services the private sector is ill-equipped, or unwilling, to undertake, largely because they do not produce reliable revenue streams but nonetheless contribute to the commonweal. We include among them law enforcement, fire protection, maintaining an impartial judiciary, certain social services — and, yes, animal control.

Rather than being content to round up and destroy whatever unlucky pooch happens to wind up in the pound, the government needs to fulfill its responsibility for making sure Cayman is safe for pets and safe for people in Cayman who encounter the “pets” of others. Roving packs of dangerous dogs are simply unacceptable in a tourism destination, and emaciated horses and poorly kept cattle are below our goodness as a people. (See letter on this page.)

What this country needs, perhaps, is not another member in the Legislative Assembly (the proverbial “19th member”), but someone to run for the necessary and important position of dogcatcher.