Sen­ate Vice Pres­i­dent Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit says home­less dogs housed at the San Fer­nan­do Dog Pound will fare bet­ter on the streets. At a vis­it to the fa­cil­i­ty yes­ter­day, Ou­dit de­scribed the con­di­tions as "un­ac­cept­able." Ou­dit was at the Em­ba­cadere, San Fer­nan­do fa­cil­i­ty at the start of an "Adopt-a-Pet" dri­ve head­ed by San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion Pub­lic Health Com­mit­tee and Ca­nine Unit Chair­man Dr Navi Mu­radali. She said, "It is sad when you come here (and see) these an­i­mals. They are help­less, they can­not fend for them­selves. You bring them in here to suf­fer. "In fact, to me, it is bet­ter if the dogs were out on the streets they could for­age for food, they might get wa­ter from the drains, they might have a clean place to sleep un­der a car or some­thing and that might be bet­ter than here." The Sen­ate Vice Pres­i­dent ex­pressed dis­plea­sure with the con­di­tions in which some 60 dogs are forced to stay be­fore they are put to sleep.

"Un­less we can take care of here (the pound), then what is the point of col­lect­ing dogs if you can­not see about them at all? A lot of them are very adopt­able dogs. You want peo­ple to come and adopt the dogs, but who is go­ing to want to come here un­der these con­di­tions," she lament­ed. Yes­ter­day a san­i­ta­tion team was seen busy at work spray­ing down the cages where the dogs are kept. Ou­dit, Mu­radali and vol­un­teers from NGO An­i­mals Alive and Save the an­i­mals reached through the bars of the cages and pat­ted the heads of ea­ger dogs. Out­dit said the dogs–some of them very healthy–were en­closed and un­der fed. Among the dogs were pom­peks, many of them wear­ing dog col­lars, an in­di­ca­tion that they have own­ers.

Mu­radali on dog law

Mu­radali said un­der the Dogs Act (1918), once a col­lared dog is col­lect­ed on a street the Cor­po­ra­tion is sup­posed to no­ti­fy res­i­dents about the dog so the own­er can col­lect it at the pound.

How­ev­er, he said, "That is not done at present and that is why we are tak­ing it to the City Coun­cil." The Deputy May­or said to­mor­row a mo­tion will be raised at the Cor­po­ra­tion's first statu­to­ry meet­ing to deal with all the is­sues sur­round­ing the dog pound, in­clud­ing an up­grade of the fa­cil­i­ty. "Hope­ful­ly we will get all of these items ap­proved in­clud­ing the new plan which is re­al­ly to re­struc­ture the whole ca­nine unit and dog pound in the City of San Fer­nan­do," he said.

Mu­radali said the re­sponse to the adop­tion dri­ve has been tremen­dous and so far 15 dogs have been adopt­ed. How­ev­er, he said, on Thurs­day the vet re­turns to the pound and all the dogs be­ing housed there will be put to sleep. "We are try­ing as best as pos­si­ble to let the pub­lic know this is the place to come. Those who may have lost their dogs that went miss­ing in the thun­der­storms, come to Em­ba­cadere and get your dogs back. For those who do not have dogs, come here and get a dog."