Interviewer: San-Yu Elementary School Team

Interviewee: Dr. Guan at Animal Home

[Interview contents]

Question 1: Where do most of the animals at Animal Home come from?

Answer: Most of the animals come from people who call Animal Home's switchboard and say they see a cat or dog on the road and feel that it has no owner, then the animal rescue team will send a vehicle and bring the animal in. At Animal Home, we will scan for the chip first. If the chip is implanted, the owner will be informed to pick up the dog or cat, but most of them have no owner.

Question 2: How many animals come into the shelter on an average day? How many dogs and cats does Animal Home adopt now? If there are suddenly too many animals to take in, where do they go? Or what should you do with them?

Answer: The number varies from day to day, sometimes there are more than 10 or 20 animals, on average there are about 7 or 8 animals a day. In principle, we must take them in. As long as they come in, we must accept them, and it's just a matter of where to put them. At the moment, there is another place called the original site, the maximum number that the Animal Home can take is about 1000.

Question 3: Will Animal Home be open to let other people's pets stay temporarily? If so, how long do they usually stay? What kind of animals are more suitable for temporary stay? Why?

Answer: We don't have the sponsorship of the so-called dog and cat hotel, because it will have a conflict of interest with other’s business. So, we only provide a shelter for the kind of unowned animals, and we don't have the so-called hotel for the temporary stay of the dog and cat.

Question 4: What kind of animals are allowed in the interactive area?

Answer: Stable animals, those that do not fight or bite at will.

Question 5: What kind of animals are generally recommended for adoption?

Answer: It depends on what people like. Some people like the animal that one can touch and that will not be mean to you. That kind is easier to be adopted out. But a mean dog or cat is not easy to be adopted out, it is hard to be adopted.

Question 6: How many animal rescue vehicles does a shelter have on average? Why is the animal rescue vehicle green? What medical equipment is on board?

Answer: Usually there are 5 or 6 rescue vehicles on duty, but there are about 10 regular vehicles. The green color is as per the regulations of the Council of Agriculture, so all the animal rescue vehicles in Taiwan are green in color. In fact, the vehicles do not have the so-called medical equipment and they only have the equipment needed for capturing animals, such as blowing guns, that is, some animals need anesthesia to bring in. If they have the so-called cooperative animal hospital, the injured animals will be directly sent to the hospital for emergency treatment.

Question 7: Why is it necessary to have an X-ray room and an operating room in an animal home? What kind of equipment is in the operating room?

Answer: Because actually there is a regular veterinarian in the X-ray room of Animal Home to help us see things that cannot be seen by the naked eye, just like for humans, to facilitate diagnosis and treatment. In fact, the equipment in our operating room is the most basic, we mainly need the operating room equipment for wound treatment or neutering, and there is no complicated surgical equipment in our operating room.

Question 8: What special tools or equipment does the Animal Protection Office have?

Answer: In fact, I think our special equipment is in the rescue team, they have some special equipment for cat and dog trapping, while what we have here are some containers for sheltering the animals or cat litter containers.

Question 9: Have you ever rescued any special animal? How do you treat them if you encounter them?

Answer: In fact, although we take in dogs and cats, but in fact they (animal rescue team) also have taken in such animals like chameleons, birds, snakes, and tortoises, but they are sent to a place other than the Animal Home. We have a shelf animal protection department, and we call its head office at Wuxing Street. There is an animal shelter to take in these so-called non-cats and cats, and there is a non-dog and cat veterinarian who treats and cares for animals other than cats and dogs.

Question 10: Have you ever brought a dying animal back to life? If so, can you share with us what happened?

Answer: I didn't have any such personal experience. But the doctors responsible for diagnosis and treatment did. The pupils of the animal were already dilated but they managed to pull it back, that kind of thing gives them a sense of accomplishment. Most of the time you will find that 9.9 out of 10 animals will not be saved when you are dealing with serious and emergency cases, so you will be very impressed with if there is one success.

Question 11: If the animal is not successfully saved, how will it be handled if it passes away?

Answer: We will send the animals to a professional animal funeral company for incineration, and there will be a special section for the ashes of the animals.

Question 12: Has there ever been a case where an animal ran away from Animal Home? How do you handle it at that time?

Answer: In fact, it often happens because we will let the animals out for activities and sometimes they will take the opportunity to run away. And when they run away, we will first try to find them nearby. But in fact, many of them cannot be found, that is, those stray dogs know where to look for food or where to hide. In fact, they often do not come back once they go out.

Question 13: What measures will be implemented if the animal does not want to cooperate with the work?

Answer: In fact, animals often need to cooperate with us when they receive medical treatment. For the medical treatment time, we need the animal to lie down a little to calm down, so we can help it with some medical things that need to be handled.

Question 14: If you encounter an abuser who does not cooperate, how will you handle it? Can you notify the police to handle it together?

Answer: In fact, when the abuser is reported, the police will notify the people from Animal Protection Office to go with them to inspect the animal. They will first take the animal to the animal hospital for emergency treatment, and then send it here for settlement. Afterwards, the police will proceed to follow-up criminal investigation and legal procedure for the abuser.

Question 15: Has Mr. Chen encountered any more serious cases of animal cruelty? Can you share them with us?

Answer: Actually, such incidents are often reported and posted on the video, but what the Animal Protection Office does is to shelter animals, protect them, and conduct injury examinations for criminal investigation so that they can be prosecuted and fined.

Question 16: Will the Pet Park be together with the general park? What are the special features of Pet Park or what kind of equipment is available for pets?

Answer: In fact, there is no special equipment in Pet Park. I have found that some have some equipment that can be used by dogs for running and jumping, but it depends on the space. For example, the Tammy Dog Park near us does not have any special equipment, and there are only separate areas for small dogs and large dogs so that the two types of dogs do not mix. And I remember that there was a coin-operated pet bathing machine at the entrance but it has been removed. The only thing that remains is the general flushing foot washing station.

Question 17: Do you deliver pets during surgery?

Answer:Do we deliver pets during surgery? No, we don’t. The cats will be kept in our so-called delivery room until the kittens are weaned and then they will be taken out. We mainly let the animals give birth on their own.

Question 18: Will there be any protest?

Answer: Because the dogs bark at night, so every time we need to find a new Animal Home we will get a protest from the head of the community, because no one likes to have an Animal Home next to your house.

Question 19: What if there are many animals that need emergency surgery and the operating room can't accommodate them?

Answer: Actually, we don't have the emergency treatment in the operating room, it's better to operate in an open space, and we don't operate immediately for emergency treatment. Instead, the animal should first restore obvious physical signs, such as blood pressure, heartbeat, breathing and so on.

Question 20: Is there really a freezer?

Answer: We have a large -20-degree freezer, as big as a room, which is often used for dogs and cats that die on the road and for our own dogs and cats that die of illness.