While we have spoken a lot about the unique Bali Heritage Dog, it’s history, traits and position nowadays, we would like to talk about a topic now that seems to be reaching more and more concern, at least for people like us who are a strong advocate for animal welfare here in Bali.
The topic we want to address is the increasing suffer of western breed dogs.
The Bali Dog is a pure and un-mutanised breed of dogs that have lived isolated on the island reportedly for over 12.000 years. They have adapted perfectly to the tropical climate and harsh living conditions. As they are not recognized as its own breed, they are not bred for purity, yet the integrity was protected until a law prohibiting the import of dogs to Bali was lifted back in 2004. Since then western breed dogs have become fashionable and the Bali Dogs as a unique breed facing extinction.
Those “pure” breed dogs we know today are actually mutants made by humans, with most of them being products of uncontrolled puppy mills where inbreeding is the norm to create all sizes, shapes, colors and more. Many people here in Bali are now opting for western breed dogs due to marketing and public desire. While surely some of them are seen as loved pets, many others are simply used for breeding or serve as a status of symbol only.
Trapped in cages, their bodies exploited to make profit from their puppies that are being sold without any health records, those poorly inbreeds introduced new and weaker genetic variations. Once sick or not useful any longer, they fell victim of abandonment. Hope, Penny, Indah, Gracy, Pino, Mimi and Cinta just to name a few, are some of those breed dogs we had to save from a slow and painful death on the street.
As we can’t ban breeding and we can’t stop people to buy pure breed dogs here in Bali, what else can be the solution? We always come back to the same conclusion, and that is sterilization. It is the only sustainable way to reduce and prevent suffering in the future.
Now, you probably have seen on our social media channels that additionally to our monthly sterilization days we have already began to implement a monthly event in which we focus only on pure and mixed breed dogs and cats. But you may wonder why we have to differentiate those days.
Unfortunately the vet team we are collaborating with on our big mass events is forbidden to operate on pure breed animals in believe owners of such pets had the money to buy them and surely will also have the money to treat them. Them and us, we all know that this is not always the case.
But sadly their hands are tied which means for us we have to use the service of a private vet to spay and neuter pure and mixed breed dogs and cats and using a private vet is associated with higher costs for us. While we can sterilize local animals for only USD 16, we can sterilize breeds for USD 25.
Our big goal is to widen our spay, neuter and vaccination program to reduce and to prevent suffering of all dogs and cats here in Bali.
Please, continue to join us on this most important mission.