Proposed animal legislation will be comprehensive

Dear Editor,

I read in the Kaieteur News of Friday 10, an interesting article titled ‘Government tables bill to licence three or more animals…’

Readers were informed that the House has voted to send the bill to a Select Committee for fine tuning. I paid particular attention to the fact that some sections of society have reacted to the provision which stated that breeders of three or more pets should be registered. It is interesting to note that Guyana still has municipal laws which cater to these very issues; however, the municipality was never allowed to function properly, hence the impending surprise.

I was trained as a professional dog handler in 1982, and quickly discovered that Guyana lacked sufficient animal welfare provision. To this end, I approached the GSPCA only to discover that they had gone dormant over 12 times prior to that date. We at the National Guard Service had the largest collection of working dogs in the developing world: around 75 adult dogs and puppies of various ages. These were based at Chateau Margot and at the Ogle Intelligence Unit where selected canines were being socialized as bomb detection dogs for absorption into the presidential detail of President LFS Burnham, my last point of contact with the governmental system.

Even at that level we were constrained to perform most of our emergency veterinary treatment on dogs ourselves because of the skewed policy to dedicate the services of the Ministry of Agriculture to the treatment of livestock first, and anything after, hence many companion animals suffered and died horrible deaths for the want of urgent veterinary attention during normal working hours.

In 1985, I founded the Guyana Canine Club; however owing to the death of President LFS Burnham, we became functional during April 1986. Recognizing the need for an animal welfare organisation, the Canine Club again approached the GSPCA and offered to spearhead its resuscitation, and opened its doors to the public in April 1990.

When I went to solicit funds from Banks DIH Limited during 1990, I recalled providing Messrs Clifford Reis, Jerry Gouveia and George McDonald the assurance that this time around I will ensure that the GSPCA does not go defunct again; they were not very impressed. The same sentiments were expressed by Central Garage also a longstanding supporter of the GSPCA.

Thankfully, the GSPCA has remained open to this very day as is the case with their counterparts in Nairobi Kenya, Belmopan Belize and St Johns Antigua, all of which I have assisted through advice on how to overcome operational challenges.

Back then, the GSPCA was being assisted by several young veterinarians, notably among them my longstanding friend Dr Emanuel Cummings, the current Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Guyana.

Given the prevailing state of affairs, I assisted as supernumery personnel to treat companion animals at the clinic during the day until volunteer veterinarians arrived some evenings or on weekends.

While I did not make a fortune, my work put me in contact with the Chief of Staff of the GDF, the Prime Minister, President, and even the Leader of the Opposition and members of the diplomatic core; all of whom were equally affected by the lack of emphasis being placed on the welfare of companion animals. There were a number of negative drawbacks, the main one being that few veterinarians had developed the knowledge base and experience to effectively treat companion animal ailments, as a consequence there was a high mortality rate.

Often Dr Cummings and I struggled to cope with the large number of companion animals which arrived at the clinic. I recalled registering 64 animals one Tuesday afternoon, they included many exotic species like caimans, snakes, tiger cats and wild hogs among others. We soon enlisted the assistance of two friends and we still worked very hard. I wrote the British RSPCA and solicited training for two persons but only secured funding for one, and Mr Noel Marques pursued training in London.

While at the GSPCA, the need was felt for stricter animal welfare legislation; many persons who had the money to buy animals just bought them and mistreated them.

There was one gentleman who bought a dog and a tiger, raised them both, and then put them to mate; the tiger just ate the dog! Then persons were mating dogs of incompatible types; such indiscriminate breeding only produced monstrosities, in the words of the then vice president of the GSPCA. This exposed the animal to great discomfort and depauperated (dirty) the bloodlines which require foreign exchange to replenish.

It is in this context that the proposed animal welfare legislation, once properly crafted, will assist Guyana to develop. All middle income countries have such legislation.

For example, Guyana has produced some very good breeders of dogs and cats, and a few exported animals with great difficulty; others just stopped breeding out of sheer frustration. The proposed legislation will provide protection to unsuspecting persons who purchase companion animals, many of whom are habitually ripped off in the absence of such legislation.

Professional breeders will also be able to protect the intellectual property and purity of their bloodlines, which is very important to a breeder. Guyanese breeders will be able to obtain very high quality breeding stock from overseas because international breeders will have a guarantee that agreements of sale and ‘farming out’ agreements will be honoured by the laws of Guyana, so they will have greater confidence in the system as well.

A lot of work was done to this end over the years, when the Canine Club sought to register dogs which originate overseas; we had to fulfil some rigid criteria. In 1994, we needed an official attestation from the government. We took this up with the government and Dr Cheddi Jagan instructed then Minister of Agriculture Clinton Collymore to issue those documents to the relevant authorities.

We also tried to invite a cruise ship which ferried dogs and owners to shows around the world.

The then Minister of Home Affairs provided a guarantee to the tour operators that the government was willing to do everything possible to make their visit here a success.

We successfully lobbied the Ministry of Agriculture for Trinidad and Suriname to be removed from the restricted schedule which prevented dogs being imported from those jurisdictions. The senior officers who addressed that matter were Dr Lennox Applewaithe and Dr Linden Dodson. Then came another problem, whenever a dog was imported, one had to leave the animal at the Timehri international airport to engage customs in Georgetown, and this often took several days. We took the matter up with Messrs Bahadur, Linton and Bancroft and persons were allowed to remove the dogs to a safe environment then deal with customs, which brought much relief.

We even assisted persons who had pet shops to justify their case at commercial banks, since the banks did not understand the nuances of the pet and companion animal industry. We also started an animal journal which was more popular overseas than at home because of the general lack of awareness.

In the end the economy could not support such a high end sport, and we decided to lay the organisation to rest until such time that there is sufficient need for such a highly specialized service. When word of the proposed legislation was made public, several enthusiasts met and took a decision to resuscitate the Guyana Canine Club.

In summary, the proposed legislation will address matters as it relates to animals in their totality, many of which currently negatively affect the lives of the average Guyanese, without our involvement in or knowledge of it.

Yours faithfully, Clairmont Featherstone