Straight from the heart
If you are a dog owner, have you applied for licences for your pets from the local authorities?
I spent almost the whole of last Friday applying for new licences from Kuching South City Council for my two dogs
Initially, I thought all I had to do was present myself at the counter for dog licences, answer a few questions and maybe fill a form.
Under the new Local Authorities (Dog Licensing and Control) by-laws 2018 which came into force on Dec 1, 2018, all dog owners are required to obtain licences for their dogs. There is a one-year exemption for those who submit their dog licence applications between Dec 3, 2018 and Feb 28, 2019.
Under by-law 4 (1), a licence is valid for three years. The licensing fee for a sterilised dog is RM30 while the fee for an unsterilised dog is RM90. The by-laws also limit the number of dogs per property to three for landed properties or one small breed dog for flats and apartment properties.
There is also a provision in the new by-law that states any unclaimed dog that has been seized from the street and impounded after 48 hours will be put to sleep.
Any seized dog will only be released to the owner after he or she has paid the impounding fee of RM50 per day.
All the 26 dog licence by-laws in Sarawak have been consolidated into one law ̶ the new Local Authorities (Dog Licensing and Control) by-laws 2018 ̶ for purpose of uniformity and consistency in the licensing and control of the local dog population.
Following the outbreak of rabies in the state, there is an urgent need to control the population of dogs, particularly the stray animals.
I love my dogs and consider them as my friends. I have been thinking about applying for new licences for them ever since I read about the new by-laws. Last Friday I told myself that it is now or never!
When I presented myself at the counter for dog licences, the lady manning it gave me a Dog Licence Application Form. To my horror, it was a six-page form! Although I work in a newspaper and edit stories during my shift, I hate to fill forms!
In Section (A), I had to fill the Owner’s Details like name, gender, Identity Card no, address, contact number and e-mail address.
Among the questions asked in Section (B) of the form were particulars about my dogs, like their names, whether they were sterilised, vaccinated against rabies and when.
I was told that the veterinary clinic which had sterilised my dogs had to verify that it had performed the operations on them.
Asked when my dogs were vaccinated against rabies, I told the lady,” During a mass vaccination exercise at a community hall at Kota Sentosa.”
“When? I cannot remember but my dogs are still sporting the blue plastic chains which were put around their necks after the vaccination.”
In Section (B), I also had to specify the address where my dogs are kept.
For Section (C), I had to stick photographs of my licensed dogs. Two types of photographs were required namely pictures of their faces and their entire bodies.
The form came with an appendix on banned breed, restricted breeds and small breed dogs. Included in the list of banned breed are Pit Bull Terrier/Pit Bull, American Bulldogs, Mastiff, Japanese Tosa, Akita, Dogo Argentino, Fila Braziliero and any crossbreed of the above.
The list of restricted breeds include Rottweiller, Doberman, German Shepherd/Alsatian, Bull Mastiff, Bull Terrier, Perro de Presca Canario (also known as Canary Dog) and any crossbreed of the above.
Listed as the small breeds dogs are Miniarure Pinscher, Bichon Frise, Pekingese, Papillon, Poodle (Toy), Japanese Chin, Maltese, Pomeranian, Chihuahua and any crossbreed of the above.
The lady at the counter was kind and caring. As she passed me the form, she reminded me to return it to the counter before Feb 28. “After that, you have to pay for the dog licence fees,” she said.
My first visit to the counter on Friday was around 10 o’clock in the morning. I was not sure whether I could return to the counter located at the Kuching South City Council building in Padungan later in the afternoon.
There were two urgent things I had to do. First, I had to drop by at the private veterinary clinic which sterilised my dogs and get the veterinary doctor’s signatures for my two pets. So off I drove to the veterinary clinic at Jalan Tun Jugah, not far from King’s Centre.
I was lucky that day. When I entered the clinic, the kind good doctor was standing right at the counter. I explained to him what I needed. He understood and without much ado, asked for my contact number. From the number, he traced the details of my dogs and the dates of their sterilisation. On the spot, he issued the health records of my two dogs, Lucky and Cookie, and promptly signed them.
After that, I rushed home to my dogs. Again, Lady Luck was smiling on me that day. My IT-savvy niece Chai Hong was at home. I promptly assigned the job of taking photographs of the dogs to her. While I was busy doing errands around the house, I could hear her instructing the dogs to sit or stand so that she could take nice photographs of them with her iPhone.
To my delight and great relief, Chai Hong also kindly volunteered to fill in the Dog Licence Application Form for me.
Next, my niece and I stopped at a photo studio at Tabuan Jaya. There, I saw for the first time the photographs Chai Hong took of Lucky and Cookie with her handphone. .
Looking at a photograph of Lucky as it came out of the printing machine, the girl at the photo studio exclaimed, “What a handsome dog!” Standing behind her, I looked at the picture and saw Lucky’s big brown face starring at me. The female dog’s tongue was sticking out as well!
“It is a female dog! Should be a pretty dog, not handsome dog,” I pointed out to her.
Cookie, my male brown and white dog, is actually bigger than Lucky. But in the photograph, it did not look that big. It also did not look as friendly as Lucky. I guess like human beings, some dogs are photogenic while others are not.
With the form properly filled and the photographs of the dogs in hand, my niece and I presented ourselves at the counter for dog licences at the Kuching South City Council building in Padungan after 2pm.
A different lady was on duty this time. She took the photographs of my dogs and glued them to the form I submitted. After that, she passed me two dog licences. Because I had applied for the licences before Feb 28, I did not have to pay a sen.
When I commented that the plastic dog licences could lose their colours and fall off easily, she revealed that there were talks about changing the material from plastic to metal in future.
When we reached home, my niece used a fishing line to secure the licences to the collars of my dogs.
Now that I have applied for new licences for my dogs, I can sleep better. My dogs are my friends. They are happy to see me when I come home from work every night.
If you love your dogs as much as I love mine, go and get the licences for them from your local authorities.
