Pre-sale screenings for pet owners should not be conducted by pet sellers: Baey

SINGAPORE — Pre-sale screenings for pet owners should be conducted by a neutral party such the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) or an animal welfare group, rather than pet sellers who have vested interests in ensuring successful transactions, said Member of Parliament Baey Yam Keng today (Nov 5) in support of the proposed Animals and Birds (Amendment) Bill.

Pre-sale screenings began in January this year, and the process includes questions about the potential buyers’ pet ownership history and whether he or she has the time and resources to care for the new pet.

“This pre-sale screening is certainly a step in the right direction,” said Mr Baey. “Potential owners are prompted to think more deeply and carefully before buying and this would help to reduce impulse buying or adoption.”

But the screenings could be made more stringent, he said. “Getting pet owner certifications from independent third parties sounds inconvenient. However, compared to putting down thousands of animals every year, especially highly-cognisant ones such as dogs and cats, additional red tape is definitely the lesser evil.”

He also argued for stricter limits on the number of pets sold and the number of places that sell pets, as well more stringent requirements to ensure the health of animals being bred or imported for sale.

“Sellers should be required to be more transparent about the lineage of their animals and be required to offer animals suited to our warm and humid tropical climate and dense, built-up environment,” he said. “In recent years, there have been a number of mass adoption exercises due to pet farms closing down or not being able to sell their ‘excess stock’. There have also been cases of poor breeding practices leading to genetic health problems.”

“Many animals which cannot find homes or which suffer from health problems have to be put down. Such tragic outcomes could have been prevented if we have more stringent measures in place upstream.”

PETS AND PROPERTY SIZE

Also speaking on the Bill was Member of Parliament Gan Thiam Poh, who suggested that the size of a pet-owner’s house and the number of people living there are factors that should be taken into consideration by authorities when granting dog licenses. Current regulations are based on whether the pet-owner lives in a HDB flat or on private property.

Mr Gan, who is also a member of the Animal Welfare Legislation Review Committee, pointed out that regulations now stipulate that those living in an HDB flat can only have one dog of an approved breed, while those who live in a private property can have three dogs. However, he said that a couple “can live quite comfortably with a chihuahua and a toy poodle in a four-room flat”, while some private property units allowed to house three dogs can be smaller than certain HDB flats.

Mr Gan also asked for updates on a pilot project to assess the feasibility of keeping cats in HDB flats and more stringent measures to compel owners of noisy dogs to get their pets trained.

He also said those interested in keeping cats feel that the animals “can be confined without problems by fencing their windows and doors with netting”, and “can also be toilet-trained and their caterwauling can be prevented by sterilisation”. CHANNEL NEWSASIA