The leaflet offers members of the public a reward of RM55 for every dog they catch, provided it is brought in to the council alive.
Getting wind of it, Tunku Idris Iskandar Sultan Ibrahim Ismail, of the Johor royal family, a known animal lover, chided the Pasir Gudang Council for this brochure, saying, “You don’t just go around and put dogs down.”
He also said the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) existed for a reason.
The Johor prince added that “this is what happens when you invite them for a SPCA event and they don’t understand Tunku Permaisuri’s speech which was in English”.
“Very Disrespectful,” he wrote on his Instagram account.
Tunku Aminah, his elder sister, is the patron for Johor SPCA.
Syed Azmi Alhabshi, the man known for organising the “I Want To Touch A Dog” event in 2014, said if the local council had so much money to give out, it should have looked for better and more humane ways of handling strays.
“You can use the money, for example, to educate people on the importance of neutering their dogs so there won’t be too many strays out there.
“That is more humane than to melupuskan (exterminate) dogs. When I read that (the word) I felt very sad. It’s like they (the local council) have no brains.
“I understand if they think the number (of stray dogs) is alarming, but there are better, more Islamic ways of handling strays.
“Killing them is unnecessary. That wasn’t a thought-through decision,” he told FMT.
Wani Mutthiah, founder of the animal rescue group Malaysian Dogs Deserve Better, said offering monetary rewards for strays would only lead to a frenzy, where the public would be chasing to catch dogs and bring them in.
“The dogs will be mistreated as RM55 is a lot of money for most people.
“This will become a sporting event where the wellbeing of the dogs would be disregarded, so long as they are (brought in) alive,” she said when contacted by FMT.
Wani also pointed out that this situation occurred as dogs were a component under every local council’s vector department, which is the same department that monitors rats and mosquitoes.
Hence, it was common practice for some councils to offer money to its members to catch dogs, the same way it offers money to the public to catch rats, she said.
However, dogs are potential pets that shouldn’t be treated the same way as other disease-carrying pests, she added.
According to Wani, the only way for this to stop would be for dogs to be removed from the vector category entirely, and be placed under a separate government department.
“The strays should be neutered and released. In fact, the government can neuter the dogs for less than RM55.”
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