A woman carries her pet dog along a street in Beijing. Photo: Getty Images
Source:
https://scmp.com/news/people-culture/social-welfare/article/3121322/new-covid-19-outbreaks-china-reopen-pet-owners Social Welfare
New Covid-19 outbreaks in China reopen pet owners’ wounds, but public pressure eases some lockdown restrictions
- During early pandemic quarantines, many pet owners in China were forced to leave their pets alone at home or send them into the wild
- Following public pressure, Daxing district in Beijing adjusted measures to allow pets to be moved to hotels with their owners
This picture taken on December 15, 2016 shows a cat dressed in clothing on a street in Shanghai. Poodles in pink dresses, Pekinese wearing shirts, a Pomeranian in sneakers and a raincoat -- the sidewalks of Shanghai can sometimes seem like catwalks gone to the dogs.
Johannes EISELE / AFP
Some pets were abandoned, stranded and left to starve to death when a sudden lockdown was imposed on central Wuhan in January last year and residents were taken away to quarantine or forbidden to return to their homes.
New Covid-19 outbreaks in China have reopened the wounds of pet-owners, with some complaining they were asked to leave their pets alone at home or send them into the wild.
“The neighbourhood community notified us to go to a hotel for central quarantine and refused to let me take my two cats to quarantine together,” said a Beijing internet user on Weibo in late January.
The woman lives in a residential area in Beijing’s Daxing district, where residents were moved to hotels for quarantine after Covid-19 outbreaks. “They told us to set the cats free in the wild,” the woman wrote. “We cooperated with epidemic control, but please also take into consideration the life of pets.”
Many online readers sympathised with the woman and criticised the way the situation had been handled. “It’s been a year and why can’t the government think of a protocol to deal with pets?” said one Weibo user.
Du Fan, president of the Wuhan Association of Small Animals Protection, told China National Radio that some pets, mostly cats, had starved when owners were forced to abandon their pets during last year’s lockdown. He and more than 60 volunteers helped to provide food and water to pets in more than 5,000 households. He personally had to deal with the bodies of starved pets.
Fears of a repeated tragedy sent the pet posts viral, especially after internet users compared Beijing with Shanghai, which had also reported Covid-19 outbreaks but where pet-owners were allowed to keep their pets with them.
When confirmed cases were reported in the Zhaotong neighbourhood of Shanghai in late January, where the residential area was too old for the hygiene standards of strict quarantine, residents were moved to hotels. A video clip of a Zhaotong family leading a pet dog to a bus and a picture of pet owners boarding a bus with pets went viral.
The Communist Party-owned Guangming Daily said Shanghai’s pet policy was “heart-warming”, adding that “humane thoughtfulness” was the true power in epidemic prevention.
A pet-owner walks her dog across a footbridge in a residential neighbourhood in Beijing. Photo: Getty Images
The Daxing government in Beijing finally bowed to public pressure and came up with measures to handle the pet crisis. Families with pets will be allowed to leave one member at home to care for them while others go to central quarantine, Han Xinxing, deputy head of Daxing district, said on Sunday. A day later the new policy was adjusted to allow pets to be moved to hotels with their owners.
“My two cats and I have moved to a hotel and we are in the same room,” posted the Daxing woman who had originally complained about the forced separation from her pets. “Don’t be worried. Those who have gone to central quarantine with pets left behind have also been handled appropriately. One family member was sent home to take the pets to be moved to a new hotel.” Her update post was widely applauded.
A little dog walks by newly made traditional red lanterns in the village of Tuntou, in Hebei province, China. Photo: Getty Images
Yet even when owners were allowed to quarantine with their pets, strict lockdown rules have made life difficult.
The entire city of Tonghua in Jilin province has been locked down since January 18. A man was detained for five days for leaving home and walking his dog at 5am, Tonghua police said. “I made a mistake. Please don’t copy me,” the man was shown confessing on camera.
In Suihua, Heilongjiang province, under strict lockdown due to Covid-19 outbreaks, dog owners were shown on video lowering their dogs on ropes from high floors so the pets could defecate before being pulled up again.
One man who lived on the fourth floor said he made a rope from old clothes to lower his dog because it would not relieve itself at home. “The dog was used to being walked three times a day and it won’t go to the toilet at home,” the man told Thepaper.cn.
A woman carries her dog as she and her husband go for a walk in Beijing. Photo: Getty Images
While most Weibo users felt for pet owners, many thought quarantine was hard both for owners and pets, and some hinted the pet-owners had been irresponsible by putting their dogs’ safety at risk.
“What if the rope suddenly breaks?” one Weibo user asked. “It’s all right if you are on the second or third floor, but the eighth floor is really dangerous.”