Pet Overpopulation

Preventing overpopulation of abandoned pets :Curbing pet abandonment in Hong Kong

1.Introduction

·Situation/Background information:Pet abandonment refers to an irresponsible act when owners abandon their pet and when their pets face mercy killing as a consequence .(SPCA,2011)

·Thesis statement:To decrease the number of homeless pets abandoned by their owners, which appears as an issue of growing concerns in Hong Kong, traditional methods such as building up more animals shelters or providing stray animals with sterilization operations may only relieve the symptoms, while to have pets licensed along with the animal protection law would be the ultimate cure.

2.Problem

·Topic sentence:Abandoning pets prevalent in Hong Kong and has become an

(“Phoenix dog dump”,2015)

-Choosing the wrong breed is one of the most common reasons for abandonment.(NOAH’s Dogs,n.d.)

-For safety reasons,owners often give up their dogs when they have a new-born baby.(NOAH’s Dogs,n.d.)

-There are more social causes that many people still hold the attitude and mentality that pets are disposable.(“military wants harsher”,2012)

·Negative consequences:

-Cruelly,most “orphaned” pets which are often carries of disease hanging around the street may cause heavy illness in people.(Impact of stray dogs and cats,2013)

-More presence of roaming dogs and cats suggests an uncaring society which may do great harm to the local tourism industry. (Impact of stray dogs and cats,2013)

-It is possible for pets wandering on the street or at the airport to cause problems, such as car accidents It is a potential problem that homeless pets on the street or at the airport may cause an accident.(Impact of stray dogs and cats,2013)

-Recent research has shown that abandoning dogs come to be more pessimistic.(“research shows abandoned”,2010)

3.Solutions and

-At the same time,catching a roaming animal takes a lot time and energy.(“A dentist quit”,2015)

Solution 3:The method of making the implantation of microchips in all pets mandatory expects to handle the problem of abandoned pets in the original process.

·Explanation:While buying a new pet or adopting a sheltered animal,it should be a mandatory requirement to buy a license and have pets chipped. Once chipped pets are abandoned,a large amount of fee is required to be paid by the owner .(“too many abandoned”,2013)

·Shortcoming:Of course,it costs higher license fee for potential buyers to have a pet.

·Advantages:

-Having every pet licensed and chipped will decrease the cases of lost animals for they can be easily located.

-For those who left their pets behind consciously or on purpose, ,the government would have easy access to them, the irresponsible owners, who would then be required to pay a heavy fine. These owners would then think twice before owning or abandoning their pet. (“too many