After graduating from NTU veterinary school in 2013, I decided to devote my time into The Taiwan SPCA as an intern investigator. My main jobs are to assist the Taiwan SPCA head investigator with abuse and neglect cases and liaise with government officials. Veterinarian medicine has always been my first interest as I am very passionate about animals. Previously, I thought that treating animal’s ailments and curing their pain was the only way I could help them. Yet gradually I started to realize that there are many people who are cruel to animals, either intentionally or not, and that by being a clinical vet I’d only be able to help those animals who had families. Yet there are so many animals suffering abuse and neglect that desperately need help, so this is why I decided to intern with the Taiwan SPCA instead of working in a clinic right after graduation.
As a fifth year student I noticed that many pet owners assumed the vet should know everything about their pet’s health problems and know how to treat them, even without providing basic health info and history. As is similar in investigating cases, the person reporting the case plays an important role in ‘solving the crime’. Sometimes the animal in question looks totally normal without any signs of abuse or neglect therefore it is really difficult to tell if they had been abused or not. Often reports are received with incomplete/missing addresses, wrong addresses (so when we go out to investigate, no animals are found on scene) and the person who reports the case doesn't’ leave a contact number, so we can’t ask them for further info if needed. These are all big problems for the SPCA when managing all it’s cases. Another problem is the public, veterinarians, owners and investigators all have different thoughts and opinions in regards to animal welfare and health. For example, a big mass on an animal’s body seen by the public as perhaps cancerous or deadly could possibly just be a benign mass that poses no threat to the animal at all which would be easily identified by a vet.
I myself have a dog and cat at home and have worked with animals for a while and always assumed that people who keep animals do it because they love animals and have the correct knowledge about how to care for them. However, I have come to realize that there are many people that sadly don't’ have the correct pet keeping knowledge and even that there are some people who keep them just to be able to mistreat them. Would you like to be kept in a small cage your whole life? NO, and neither would animals. Yet there are many animals who are kept in a tiny filthy cages 24/7, some are even kept on the top of the smelly, hot gutters. I still can’t understand why if you can’t take care of animals properly, why on earth you’d want to keep them?
We often have to educate the owners that they must provide fresh clean water 24/7, which is not only what is right for animals, it is in the Taiwan law. This seemed like common sense to me, so after I started with the Taiwan SPCA I was shocked to find that many owners don’t even do this basic thing. I once believed that by the using the Taiwan Animal Protection Act, abuse and neglect would be easily stopped. However, after getting more familiar with it, I found there are many loopholes and there aren’t any clear definitions of physical and mental abuse, which makes it very hard for us to do our jobs. However on the scene, I found it very helpful to have a vet background as there aren’t ultrasound or blood test machines on site to assist with diagnosis, but I can use my professional knowledge to assess the animal’s situation. During my internship, I still feel frustrated at times, nevertheless, my colleagues and I still work tirelessly to help the animals in need of help. I’ve also learnt how to effectively communicate the concept of animal welfare with government officials, pet owners and the general public. I sincerely hope that one day the term ‘animal protector’ won’t be needed, because protecting animals will be a concept deeply embedded in everyone’s hearts.
