Pets and Microchips in Singapore

A letter from ST forum today.


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Punish those who mistreat and abandon pets

		One of the four pedigree dogs found abandoned at a Pasir Ris carpark nearly two weeks ago. -- PHOTO: COURTESY OF IRENE LOW

I REFER to Monday's letter, 'Dog found dumped near rubbish bin'. The sad story of cruelty, neglect and abandonment of pet dogs is unfortunately a common one.

On the morning of May 29, four pedigree dogs were found together at a carpark of Pasir Ris Park. There were two female pugs, a female schnauzer and a male shih tzu. The breed of the male dog could not be determined with certainty as he had lost all his fur and, like the other three dogs, was covered with sores and in a foul-smelling, filthy, mangy condition.

All the dogs appeared to be un-neutered. The female dogs had sagging udders and must have suckled more than one litter of pups before. The dogs have received veterinary treatment for skin and other infections and are now being cared for at an animal shelter.

Although three of the dogs have microchips with serial numbers that were detected by a scanner, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) was unable to trace the owners as the dogs were not licensed with the authority.

I am writing this letter with the hope that there will be more public awareness of the pitiful plight of dogs abandoned by their owners.

This is also a call for more effective measures to trace and prosecute owners who mistreat their dogs and then abandon them cruelly and irresponsibly.

Irene Low (Ms)

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The key sentence in this letter is this

"Although three of the dogs have microchips with serial numbers that were detected by a scanner, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) was unable to trace the owners as the dogs were not licensed with the authority."

What this means is that AVA made it madatory for pet owners to microchip their pets, but did not make it madatory for veterinarians to register the details of the pet owners together with the microchip number with a central database. Either that or the Veterinarian who did the microchip failed to carry out his duties.

Major fail.

IMBS's War on Everything: Satire on ST forum

Nov 12, 2007

We should consider having our own Anti-social Behaviour Act to deal with ugly S'poreans

THE Scottish Parliament passed the Anti-social Behaviour Act (ABA) in 2004 with the original intention of curbing noise nuisance.

This Act, which empowers authorised officers and the police to take summary action against an offender by imposing a fine and even confiscating the offending equipment, is effective in curtailing the noise problem.

We should have a similar Act in Singapore modified and expanded in scope to deal with the various anti-social behaviour problems here.

Here are some anti-social behaviour problems which can be corrected by this Act.

>>On MRT trains and public buses, it can be used to catch and fine those who fail to give up the designated seats for the pregnant, disabled and elderly. It can also be used to nab those who assault bus drivers when asked to produce their passes for identification.

>>On the road, it can be used to punish those who grab the oncoming taxi without consideration that another person is there earlier waiting for it. The cabby can be reminded that if he picks up the queue-jumper, he will be reported to the police for action to be taken against him under this Act.

>>In crowded car parks, it can be used to fine inconsiderate and discourteous drivers who go against the directional sign to occupy the empty lot, ignoring those who were there earlier.

>>At various places, it can discipline people who display anti-social and repugnant behaviours such as queue-jumping and spitting.

>>On the Internet, it can be used to punish and discipline irresponsible bloggers who are quick to insult a person by their libellous remarks or foul language. The police can fine the errant bloggers who usually operate under the cloak of anonymity and ask them to apologise and reveal their true identities including their photographs on their blogs.

This Act is all-embracing and can be applied in some way to eradicate any anti-social behaviour displayed by the ugly Singaporeans. Should there be any future anti-social behaviours, the ambit of the Act can be enlarged to deal with these new problems.

The ugly Singaporeans are a bane to society as they destroy our efforts in building a gracious society. They also tarnish our image as a First World country by their Third World behaviours.
National campaigns in the past have not yielded much results and we should not discontinue these ongoing programmes aimed at changing their values, attitudes and behaviours.

We should also seriously consider having our own ABA to reform those hard-core anti-social elements who cannot be changed by the persuasive approach of national campaigns.

Nelson Quah
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I am of the opinion that since the Straits Times is the premier newspaper of Singapore, satire must not be allowed to be passed off as constructive suggestions on the ST forum. How can? Straits Times must be serious and not joke around, otherwise it will drop further down the newspaper rankings! Then again even if the Straits Times switched to reporting jokes, it's ranking can't go down much further.

Still, in line with my war on everything, I must not allow this letter go scott free since it's too funny.

"On MRT trains and public buses, it can be used to catch and fine those who fail to give up the designated seats for the pregnant, disabled and elderly. It can also be used to nab those who assault bus drivers when asked to produce their passes for identification. "

Mr Quah here suggests that we fine those who occupy the designated seats for the pregnant. But that is not the root of the problem because everyone else must had refused to give up their seats to the pregnant, disabled and elderly, that's why it is a problem. Mr Quah must be trying to be funny here by solely laying the blame on those who occupy designated seats. I mean how is it enough just to fine such a small number of people who sat on the designated seats? EVERYONE MUST BE FINED! Have can we let the rest go scott free?

He also suggests that we nab those who assault bus drivers. I don't this such a display of naivety is funny. We already have laws to throw such people into jail. I suspect Mr Quah here is a bus driver, trying to push the bus driver agenda. First they want extra protection while on duty. Next, they will want to have special protection after duty. How can taxpayer's money go to pay personal bodyguards for bus drivers?

"On the road, it can be used to punish those who grab the oncoming taxi without consideration that another person is there earlier waiting for it. The cabby can be reminded that if he picks up the queue-jumper, he will be reported to the police for action to be taken against him under this Act. "

On this, Mr Quah is trying to punk those poor old taxi drivers which he perceives to be a competitor to the bus drivers by putting them in a damned-if-we-do-damned-if-we-don't position. How would the taxi driver know who's the queue-jumper? Then when the taxi driver gets fed up and refuses to pick up both of them, they will complain him to the authorities.

"In crowded car parks, it can be used to fine inconsiderate and discourteous drivers who go against the directional sign to occupy the empty lot, ignoring those who were there earlier. "

Hmmm....... how can a mere fine be sufficient? I say we jail that bastard!

"At various places, it can discipline people who display anti-social and repugnant behaviours such as queue-jumping and spitting. "

Come on Mr Quah, it is very unSingaporean to jump queues and spit. Where's your sense of national identity? At least he did not mention fining people who refuse to speak up against such behaviour. I mean it is so totally Singaporean NOT to speak up when someone cuts into your queue. We need to preserve our national identity at all costs!

"On the Internet, it can be used to punish and discipline irresponsible bloggers who are quick to insult a person by their libellous remarks or foul language. The police can fine the errant bloggers who usually operate under the cloak of anonymity and ask them to apologise and reveal their true identities including their photographs on their blogs. "

Of course, I'm not here to pick on every single point Mr Quah has raised. I do support this suggestion of his to curb wayward bloggers. Bloggers like Mollymeek, the epitome of Irresponsible Blogging, bloggers like Luckytan whose sarcasm is so sarcastic that it is insulting, bloggers like Rockson who is so unrefined and vulgar. This is where my examples end for it is libellous to suggest that a fellow blogger makes libellous remarks and being a responsible, polite and refined blogger that I am, I will have to reluctantly give it a miss. As for posting their photographs on their blogs, I think Mr Quah is too caught up with the NPNT (no picture no talk) nonsense on Hardwarezone Forums. Surely he must know that our great leaders have said something to the effect that the identity is not important and that it is the message that is important. To be fair to bloggers, perhaps we can have 2 catagories of blogs: The NPNT kind and the GPGT kind.

Even though Mr Quah has brought up one valid point, I think take offense with his remark that "The ugly Singaporeans are a bane to society as they destroy our efforts in building a gracious society."

Come on Mr Quah, to turn Singapore into a gracious society is so unSingaporean. Where is your sense of national identity? Having a gracious society is a western value. Are you suggesting that we erode our unique Asian values and embrace foreign interference?

Typical ST forum letter

ST Nov 3, 2007

Be specific about disruption in train service

TRAIN service in town was disrupted on Thursday at about 6.30pm. I was at City Hall Station waiting for the train when I heard the following announcement:

'There is a track fault causing service disruption for trains going south towards Marina Bay Station. The service disruption will last more than an hour.'

One would logically deduce that the track fault was somewhere between City Hall and Marina Bay stations.

My wife who was waiting to take the train at Somerset Station to Tampines at around the same time also heard the announcement.

Hence, we were confused as to where exactly was the track fault. Was it between Somerset and Marina Bay or between City Hall and Marina Bay?

Thus my wife was uncertain if she should take a bus home or continue to wait for the train, hoping that the track fault was between City Hall and Marina Bay. By this time, lots of peak-hour commuters were crowding Somerset and City Hall stations.

SMRT could handle service disruptions better by doing the following:

Have more frequent and detailed announcements on the location of the track fault, which part of the train service is affected and which is not.

Put up signboards to inform commuters about the service disruption so that affected commuters need not go into the stations unnecessarily.

Modify entry gates to handle ticket refunds during service disruptions.

Eric Ong Leng Kee

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Sigh.

Does it matter where the track fault was? The train service would have been disrupted no matter where it was.