Abu Dhabi: With no proper planning of where to keep their pets and what to do with them during the summer holidays, many owners simply resort to abandoning their pets.
The summer holidays are often seen as the worst season by several animal shelter organisations when it comes to pets being abandoned by their owners. In many cases it’s the animal welfare organisations that are left with the task of having to take the pets in for care, and putting them up for adoption.
“In general, the summer months are the time of possible higher incidences of pet abandonment” says Dr Margit G. Muller, Director at Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital.
“There is no need to abandon a pet nowadays. However, some irresponsible pet owners abandon their pets because they want to travel for vacation. Some others leave the country for good and do not make any efforts to relocate their pets with them.”
Thanks to the establishment of pet boarding hotels, the rate of animals being abandoned, while still a problem, is decreasing, according to Dr Muller. “In our Abu Dhabi Animal Shelter we have seen the numbers of abandoned and surrendered pets decreasing, and in the same time the number of pets for boarding in our pet hotel has increased tremendously. This means that pet owners are getting more responsible and they are more ready to use boarding facilities and to take their pets back after the summer holidays.”
Peta Wiggit, founder of the non-profit organisation, Adopt-me.ae, works with all animal welfare and shelter organisations in the UAE, helping find new homes for the abandoned animals. Wiggit says a lack of planning by owners is to blame and is the reason why they abandon their pets during the summer holidays.
“Sadly, every year the summer season is one of the worst months for shelters and welfare groups across the country. I think many of the pet owners think it’s going to be easy to re-home pets and often leave it to the last minute.”
“There have been many times when welfare groups get emails and calls saying ‘I leave the country this week, take my pet or else’. Many of these groups rely on foster families to take in new cases, and with many of their foster families also out of the country they just can’t help,” she added.
On how best to prevent future cases of abandonment, Wiggit says the best place to start is with the sales of animals from pet shops, “It would be great to see further restrictions and regulations on the sale of pets. Australia, for example, is looking to reform their laws for pet shops, so that pet shops can source pets from registered shelters only. There also needs to be real due diligence from shop owners that sell pets to ensure the person buying the pet is in fact ready to have a pet.”
Dr Muller mentions that giving the pet up for adoption and handing the animal over to shelters for adoption is also one route owners can take.
“In case somebody really leaves the country and cannot take their pet, then it is advisable to surrender this pet to our Abu Dhabi Animal Shelter. The pet owners just sign a surrender form and keep the pets with us…Like this we can prevent their being thrown in the streets where they are forced to live under cruel conditions, especially in the hot summer.”
The owners can also familiarise themselves with boarding homes for pets, such as the Abu Dhabi Animal Shelter, so that they are aware of somewhere to leave their pet when they are going on holiday. This is the responsibility of the owners, Dr Muller says.
