Job Discussion Forums

[mr.bojangles]

I have little issue about ESL teachers having fish or turtles as pets for their stay in Asia, but I am frusturated when they get dogs. When I taught in Korea in 1997, I knew some one had a dog. Hightailed (no pun intended) back to America without their pet as it was given a new owner. Talk about abondonment issues! I hate to think the amount of owners this dog may have faced and even worse the abuse it may have experienced. I will never forget some of the abuse I had witnessed onto dogs by some of the locals. sad.

[TaoyuanSteve]

Get frustrated all you want. I have two dogs. One was a stray I rescued off the streets. Not sure if you've ever been here in Taiwan, but the stray situation is aweful. I think foreign teachers do a dog a real favour by picking it up and thus sparing its life.

[Xenophobe]

I had one of my students give me a Husky (a real practical breed for the tropics ) that their neighbour had left after he moved. They thought that it was too big and wolf like. The dog went with us when we left Taiwan in '02, and is now my parents anti-theft device, bed hogger and lap crusher. I can understand people in cities having those little rat dogs but they should ban anything over 10 lbs in the cities.

[mr.bojangles]

Yes Steve I have been to Taiwan and the stray dog population is an issue, I am curious if you will take your dog home like Xenophobe did. When I had to give my dog up when I left to New Zealand from Canada over a year ago was an extremely hard thing to do. Today, still feeling guilty for it.

Oh ya...Happy New Year

[TaoyuanSteve]

Well, we'll just have to see what happens when I return to my country of origin (something I have no immediate plans to do). Most likely my dogs will come with me. It's a relatively painless process; they won't even have to be quaranteened as, ironically enough, dogs from Taiwan don't need to be when entering most countires. Taiwan has no rabies. I guess my main point was (and is) that the stray dogs here are living terrible lives. Even if I were to find my stray another responsible home instead of taking her back to my country, she would still be a lot better off than when I found her-- even if we do factor in the emotional issues of abandonment. You know the condition of the dogs here right? Dogs that get abandoned-- and there are literally thousands that do in Taiwan-- are sick, flea and tick infested and starving; that is before they get caught by a dog catcher and drowned. Even if a westerner were to be as cruel as to abandon a dog back onto the steets after being here a year or two, the dog will at least have survived that much longer and lived a better life during that time than it would have otherwise. Was it Maslowe who wrote the "Pyramid of Needs?" Food and shelter are much more basic needs than emotion fulfillment. My dog was not having her shelter and food needs met when I found her. Now she is having them met along with higher needs. If I gave her to someone else, it would cause her temporary anguish. But that anguish is minor when considering the alternative for her if I'd chosen to leave her where I found her. I personally advocate all westerners taking in strays. You'll be saving a life and the dog/ cat will improve your quality of life here immensely.

[EphemeralReal]

[kait]

The quality of life of most of the street dogs I see is enough to throw me into self-proclaimed morally-superior, culturally self-rightious fit. It has been the one thing in Taiwan that has resulted in a culture-shock crisis for me. I have made friends with many of the animals that reside in the general vacinities between my apartment and my work. When I'm greeted by a new limp or a new bald patch from (I assume) hot grease, I dream of hijacking a rickshaw, hurding up the strays and populating my apartment with as many flea-ridden, PTSD pups as I can manage.

[Aristotle]

I am just happy my neighbors don't want to eat my dog anymore. When I first came to Taiwan, I lost two dogs that way. However there were no strays on the streets.