I urge the State Government to expedite the tabling of a bill in the State Assembly meeting to enable the monitoring of dog ownership through pet microchip implants especially to address the issue of dog dumping by irresponsible owners in an effort to curb the spread of Rabies in our State.
According to Minister of Local Government and Housing Dr Sim Kui Hian, such Bill was supposed to be tabled in July 2018, but it was said to be delayed to November 2018 claiming that there were other more urgent matters such as the Native Customary Rights (NCR) land issue that had to be introduced. However, in the November Legislative Assembly sitting and until now, such bill has yet to be introduced.
This clearly shows the lack of urgency shown by the State Government to properly deal with the outbreak which was first detected in July of 2017. At that time, there were only five villages that were declared as rabies-infected areas and only contained in Serian, but since then, the outbreak has spread to many different places and currently it stands at 61 rabies affected areas across the state except Limbang division and has so far claimed 16 human lives.
I have been receiving multiple feedbacks recently by different stakeholders that the case of dog and even cats dumping has increased many areas around Kuching and this will of course increase the risk of more dogs being infected and spreading the deadly disease even among humans. There could be multiple reasons for this including the lack of awareness by the pet owners themselves including the lack of understanding on the process of dog license registration introduced by the local council.
It was last year that the Ministry announced that all new dog licensing and control by-laws will come into force on 1st December 2018. However based on several feedbacks, the registration process may be somewhat complicated and this has hindered many pet owners from registering their dogs. This may also contribute to the increase of dog dumping especially among those that may not fully understand such process or benefits of such registration.
Thus, the local council should look into ways to simplify the license registration process especially after engaging all the different stakeholders involved. They could also set up proper designated dog pounds all around the State to reduce dumping of dogs on the streets and increasing the number of strays.
On top of that, the needed legislation for microchipping should not be delayed any longer. It is important especially to address the issue of dumping of pets including dogs and even cats by irresponsible owners.
This microchip, which is a radio frequency implant that provides permanent identity for pets. This is to properly identify the pet owners so that we can keep them accountable and responsible to take care of their dogs and animals and if needed to enforce the law of those who committed the act of dumping their pets.
This is important because, no matter what ever decision made by the State Government to control the population of strays, the issue will repeat itself if irresponsible owners continue to dump their dogs. Thus, it is also important to address the core issue of irresponsible owners on top of any act of population control that will take place. The Local Council should then further enforce dog licensing on top of the required microchip, so a better control can be done in case of any outbreak.
I also want to encourage all members of the public to be vigilant and play our part in tackling the spread of this deadly disease. We must take more responsibility over our pets and also not let our guards down even when we hear less of rabies cases on the news as the disease is still widespread in the State.