At the end of 2001, the dog shelter in Danshui run by the Animal Protection Association of the ROC (APA) was forced to relocate after protests by neighbors, leaving the group holding NT$1 million in fines and 1500 stray animals that had been cared for at the shelter and that no one was interested in. When veterinarian Huang Ching-jung took over as APA secretary-general, the group was NT$3.7 million in debt, and was flickering away like a candle in the wind. To find a new future, the shelter experienced a mass migration, with more than 1000 animals flowing to the other shore of the Danshui River to a more spacious shelter in the town of Bali.

Nonetheless, though the animals were safe once again, they were still a long way off from "living the good life." To achieve this, Huang thought outside the box, and-in imitation of the "adopt a child" method of the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families-began promoting the fund-raising method of "You adopt them and we'll take care of them" for homeless animals for the first time anywhere in the world.

The more pathetic the better

"A lot of people like animals, but aren't really in a position to keep pets at home for a long period of time, or else they don't know how to take care of or train animals. So having pets turns their house upside down and they go through the 'trilogy' of loving 'my dog,' hating 'this dog,' and abandoning 'that damn dog.' Yet the dogs are innocent, and the owners have to live with a sense of loss, guilt, and failure."

Huang figured that rather than go through all that, a lot of people would prefer to donate NT$600 a month to "adopt" or "sponsor" a stray dog. Not only would the sponsors be helping to save a life, the dog would have a safe home and be professionally trained. This would give the dog a life with some meaning while the sponsor would have "visiting rights."

To verify the existence of each dog, the APA makes an "ID card" for it. The adopter can check out pictures, special characteristics, and microchip numbers of any dog, and if they find one that catches their fancy, donate. If they want to make the transition to "dog parent" with full responsibilities, then-just as charitable groups rigorously screen potential foster parents for human children-the APA will have to first conduct an assessment of the dog's future living conditions. If you choose just to sponsor a dog, you can still visit the animal at the shelter at any time, and even take him or her out for a while for a period that is pure pleasure.

After the poisoned feed incident, at present the Bali facility has 350 or so stray animals that have survived, while the number of sponsors is near 1000 (there is a maximum of five sponsors per dog at any one time). But regardless of whether a dog has a sponsor, the shelter gives each one the same care and love. Ordinarily the most appealing looking dogs, with cute personalities and friendly eyes, are the most popular. But there are also exceptions, as some people sympathize with the weakest, and deliberately choose the most pathetic looking dogs for adoption. Sometimes a group of classmates will adopt a dog together, and there are also those who sponsor a dog under the name of their own family pet. One kind-hearted person who already has taken in seven stray dogs at home still sponsors animals at the APA, and the record is held by someone who began sponsoring 12 dogs at a single go.

Not just "merit"

Huang points out that the "You adopt them and we'll take care of them" program is not meant to encourage people to donate money purely out of sympathy or meritorious Buddhist "generosity" and then think their job is done, but is intended to be "education in caring for dogs." The APA reminds adopters that they should try to visit their dog(s) on a regular basis or even take them home for a few days. Many keepers have discovered that dogs that have been taken out and given special affection are much more lively and spirited after they come back.

The only thing you have to keep in mind is that to take a dog out requires an interview and application, and every weekend or holiday sponsors vie for their dogs, so you have to get your application in early or trust to luck. If someone decides to take a dog home for life, the other donors for that dog have to agree to give up their rights. But in the end, for a stray dog, "the luckiest outcome is to have one home where they belong exclusively."

To minimize the burden on the shelter, there seems to be nothing better than to have someone willing to take a dog for life. But the APA is very cautious, and not every dog is available for outside adoption. First there has to be an "affinity test" to understand the dog's personality and behavior, so that there aren't problems for the owners later on leading them to put the dog back on the streets again.

Huang explains that an "affinity test" is like a personality test for a human, allowing one to see whether a dog really has an affinity for human company. Some dogs are very nervous and bark non-stop at the slightest disturbance. Some are very sensitive by nature, and will bite if you rub them the wrong way. Others don't follow directions, or are easily panicked and get themselves into deep trouble whenever anything untoward happens around them. Besides the dog's own disposition, there is the problem of whether the dog and the prospective owner will make a good match. For example, if you give a lively and active dog to a quiet homebody girl, it could be torture for both the person and the dog.

Abandoned thoroughbreds

From many years of observation, Huang has discovered that many dogs that don't follow directions or are skittish are that way because they "lack regular social interaction" and feel "the world is terrifying." This is especially often seen with family pets that are abandoned and plunged friendless straight into the urban jungle. This reflects the attitude of many people in Taiwan toward raising a dog, "If I'm happy, then there's no harm in raising a dog any way I want." They don't know how to interact with their dogs and don't spend any effort on canine education. When they no longer feel that it is fun to have a dog, they abandon it and it becomes a stray.

Probably the thing that most infuriates APA staff is the swarm effect of people adopting a certain breed of dog following a hit movie, followed by another swarm of abandonments.

Huang points to numerous examples: After the Japanese film Goodbye Quill, about a guide dog, hit the screens there was a fad for Labrador retrievers; 101 Dalmatians led to everybody and his brother getting a Dalmatian; The Doberman Gang brought Doberman pinschers; after Eight Below it was Huskies.... Many of the dogs that win audiences' hearts with their loyalty are in fact working dogs that need a lot of activity and a lot of human interaction, or they will become erratic and nervous. Recently when A Tale of Mari and Three Puppies came out, the APA made a special sticker you could download from their blog that encouraged people not to act on impulse just because they are moved by the film. APA members also responded to a blogger who wrote "How I'd love to have a Shiba!" to try to provide information that will make people think carefully before going out and buying a new puppy.

With the economy yet to take a turn for the better, the problem of pet abandonment is getting worse in Taiwan. The photo shows abandoned dogs at the APA shelter in Bali, Taipei County, putting on their best welcome for a visitor.

Loneliness therapy

"Dogs are easy to teach, people are hard to teach. Just because you love them doesn't mean you have to own them." Huang emphasizes that right now the APA is focusing its efforts on economically well-off urbanites. Among adopters, 72% are between 20 and 40, of whom 83% are female and 55% single. Most come from the Taipei area, though some live as far south as Kaohsiung. Most have university degrees.

In order to strike the right chord with potential adopters, the APA's tag line is, "We're not giving you a stray dog, we're giving you a friend." Huang feels that the adoption program has become one of "loneliness industries" that typify the era, which is something he never anticipated. He says with a hint of humor that whereas many people light a candle in the temple to help deal with sadness, "Stray dogs have a similar effect, it's just that they don't offer supernatural protection!"

But the effectiveness of the "You adopt them and we'll take care of them" program is by no means due only to fortuitous timing. A lot of hard work has gone into the "accompanying measures" to make the system work. Just the ID cards alone take lots of time, as not every dog is willing to sit obediently and look at the camera for a good picture. Also, because a lot of dogs look really similar, great care has to be taken to track them and avoid confusion. This is essential if the APA is to maintain the trust of sponsors, because they have to avoid having any "ghost dog" population of dogs that have passed away or been permanently adopted but are still on record as being at the shelter, or dogs that are in fact living at the shelter but have "disappeared" in terms of anyone being able to correctly identify the dog that goes with the name.

Moreover, if there is any change in any of the dog zones in the shelter, such as illness, dogs wandering into other enclosures to "visit their friends," dogs taken out by adopters, deaths, or the like, the information has to get from the keeper to the shelter director to the secretary-general's office within 24 hours for the immediate revision of online information, so that sponsors will know the up-to-date condition of their beloved beneficiaries.

Take for example the recent poisoned feed incident. Besides sending the affected dogs to the hospital and sending blood samples to National Taiwan University, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, and the Danshui Institute for Animal Health to try to find the cause of the illness, at the first possible moment they removed the deceased dogs from the website, cancelled their IDs, and stopped collecting money for them. Fortunately, thanks to mutual trust and good relations built up over time, few sponsors expressed any doubts or complaints. On the contrary, most encouraged the shelter to go to public dog pounds during the current wave of dog abandonments in the wake of the economic downturn to "find replacements" among dogs about to be euthanized, and actively "take reservations" for future sponsorships.

"To love them, you don't have to own them." "Though you may not be able to have a beloved pet at home, you can still have one in your heart." The adoption program launched by Huang Ching-jung allows people who love dogs but can't raise them at home, or don't know how, to find their "soulmate" online.

Dreaming of a dog farm

Huang Ching-jung, who says of himself that he has the character of a "fighting fish" and that he "gets going when the going gets tougher," has struggled to increase management and operational efficiency since he took over as the unpaid secretary-general eight years ago. He not only raised the association from the dead, every year now they have a surplus of NT$4-5 million and they are transforming into a "social enterprise." Little did he expect a sudden blow like this, which has been a big blow to morale at the center. But he is still optimistic. Besides continuing to promote the "You adopt them and we'll take care of them" program, he has an even bigger dream: to upgrade the shelter into a farm!

"If the shelter could become a farm, the dogs would be even happier!" Huang already has selected some land in Shitan in Miaoli County, which is about 3.6 hectares, as compared to the 5000-plus square meters crowded with 500 or 600 dogs in Bali. Huang plans to make one hectare of the land into a shelter, which would mean more capacity for more dogs to survive. Moreover, there would be a naturally deodorizing woodland area, where the dogs' waste products could be turned into organic fertilizer and used to feed flowers and fruit trees, or even valuable camphor and incense cedar, which would become both a source of income and a way to put something back into nature.

For the benefit of the APA's long-term operations, and even more "in order to comprehensively upgrade the level of animal protection organizations in Taiwan and make the international community sit up and take notice," Huang is also preparing "multidimensional operations." He hopes to take the farm a step further to make it a recreational "ecological education park" that people can visit.

Big plans for the future

There, dogs will find a lifetime of happiness. They will also be able, along with family pets whose owners pay the necessary fees, to enjoy a "woodland cemetery," so they can return to the Earth when their days are over and die with greater dignity. Huang also plans to branch out and provide a kennel service that allows "Baby to have a vacation while Master is out of the country." Or perhaps he will start a dog "boot camp" so that pets can be trained to be more obedient and considerate in order to attack the causes of dog abandonment at the very root.

So far the APA has planted a large number of trees of all types at the Shitan site, and the originally barren slopeland is now glossily verdant, apparently ready to accept the "new residents" from Bali any time they are ready. To complete this dream, Huang's son, who is in graduate school, is writing his thesis on "Visual Spatial Design at Animal Shelters." If all goes well, two years from now the "stray dogs" of Bali will have moved out of the shadow of the recent tragedy and into their new home!

In today's world of atomized social relations and small families, pets can be long-term partners who help relieve loneliness and stress. The heartwarming photo shows a lady taking her well-dressed dog for a walk on a weekend in early winter.

"To love them, you don't have to own them." "Though you may not be able to have a beloved pet at home, you can still have one in your heart." The adoption program launched by Huang Ching-jung allows people who love dogs but can't raise them at home, or don't know how, to find their "soulmate" online.

The biggest problem is that the various shelters run by charitable private groups are full to bursting, yet there seems no decline in the number of street dogs no matter how many government agencies may trap. Huang Ching-jung organized 50 veterinarians to offer low-cost spaying and insertion of ID chips for neighborhood strays, which are then turned over to "kindhearted mamas" for care. So far more than 1100 dogs have been operated on. The photo shows members of Taipei City's dog-catching unit at work in the Dadaocheng riverside park.