Breed determines life

I went to an island called Pulau Ubin with a group of local photographers last Saturdays. On the island, there are quite a number of dogs, almost all of them are local breed. The dogs are very friendly and generally in good health. They can walk around all places in the island freely, including the shops and restaurants. Sometimes visitors feed them with left with left over food. And according to one of my friends, who is a regular visitor to the island, there are people who bring food to feed the dogs everyday.

However, I was a bit shocked when another friend from the group came to me and commented about the dogs. He told me that he has a friend in Hong Kong that brings "this kind of dogs" home as pet, and he was surprised by that. Well, I didn't know how to react to his comment as it is very common to me that local breed can be a pet.. and I don't see any differences between local breed and pure breeds.. they are all dogs to me. They are all lovely!

But after I went to the welcome tea by the NUS Animal Welfare Club last night, I understand why this guy thinks it's weird to bring local breed home. I think it's because local breed dogs are not allowed to be kept in HDB flats (the public housing in Singapore) but other dogs are allowed!

Sometimes policies can really affect people's perception towards things. In this case, some Singaporeans now think that local breeds cannot be a pet and that's why the pet shelter I mentioned yesterday end up with hundreds of dogs and they are mainly local breed.

During the welcome tea last night, when the president was talking about the voluntary work in the pet shelter, a girl raised a question: "Is there any Golden Retriever?"

Again.. she's only concerned about pure breed.

I can understand why people love pure breeds more, they are indeed more attractive in their outlook. But local breed is far more easy to take care of and they have less behaviourial problems. They are more cute in their hearts.

I guess since I'm an ugly girl, I tend to protect the no-so-attractive animals. But to me, they are all beautiful.

By the way, you can check out the photos I took from Pulau Ubin here from my album.