The good and the bad

As a greyhound owner in New Zealand, I belong to a facebook group called the Greyhound collective. In the group, Greyhound owners can seek advice, help each other and share photos of their hounds.

It's an amazing place that's put me in touch with some truly amazing people. The real depth of the community on the collective can be incredible sometimes. Last week the ironically named Tiny, (a greyhound who at 50Kg, is anything but tiny) got spooked by some kids letting off fireworks in a park and bolted.

Tiny's distraught owners posted on the collective, letting other hound owners know to keep an eye out for their wayward hound. Reading their post my heart was in my mouth. We'd had our first dog, a miniature dachshund called Monty, escape and go missing for 6 long horrifying days.

Reading their post that night, I remembered how utterly horrific a lost dog can be and promised myself that in the morning I'd get out and have a good look for Tiny too. That morning I posted that I was going to get out and have a search and to my delight several others agreed to help.

The area where Tiny had been spooked was large and bordered by hills covered in dense bush. If Tiny wanted to stay hidden, eh;d be pretty hard to find. Wandering around we called out for Tiny (who we never saw). What we did see were others from the collective also looking for Tiny.

After heading home depressed and tired at my lack of success, I checked the collective for any more updates on Tiny and was amazed to see that he'd been found by another amazing collective member who'd been with me looking and had gone back 4 times just in case.

The whole saga has shown me that people can be incredibly decent. No one hesitated to chip in and help a Greyhound owner who needed help. The level of support from other Greyhound owners was nothing short of astonishing.

While the greyhound collective showcases the very best in people, facebook sadly also highlights the other end of the spectrum.

BassGalgo a Spanish based charity that rescues Galgos (the Spanish equivalent of greyhounds) posted an alarming photo of a Galgo that'd been chained to a fence in a carpark and left to starve. The poor Galgo is horribly emaciated but survived but has thankfully been rescued.

Incredibly Spanish hunters who use Galgos during the hunting season seem to think that it's ok to abandon these dogs by tying up in a remote location where they'll endure dehydration and starvation. Its a cruel and sickening way to treat an animal who has shown its owner nothing but loyalty. It needs to be stopped.

Amazingly there seems to be little being done to stop this horrendous practice from happening at the end of each hunting season, and the Brits and Germans who flood into Spain each summer remain blissfully unaware of the horrors being inflicted on these gentle and trusting animals.

Perhaps if the media picked up on these stories and educated tourists, the Spanish Government might be forced to get off its ineffectual behind and craft laws to prevent these sickening acts from happening.

Meanwhile if you want to help, donations can be made to http://galgosdelsol.org/ or www.baasgalgo.com. With the hunting season drawing to a close in Spain, they could really do with your help.

Time for some sanity around fireworks?

It’s almost that time of year when New Zealand is gripped with the pyrotechnic insanity that is Guy Fawkes.

It’s something that puts dread into the hearts of many a pet owner, exhausts animal shelters as well as fire services and yet bizarrely it goes ahead each year like clockwork.

Calling for a ban attracts cries of “don’t spoil our fun” from people who you’d charitably say weren’t aware of the mayhem and harm caused. The more cynical amongst us could also say that these people lacked empathy, simply don’t care and were too self involved to give a  damn.

Amazingly many of the people who are pro fireworks were amongst the first to express their anger at the shooting massacres in the US, smugly proclaiming that this sort of thing hardly ever happens in NZ as we have decent gun control laws.

Yet the reality is that for one week a year in NZ it is perfectly legal to sell a box of low power explosives and pyrotechnic devices to almost any consenting adult who’ll buy them. Making matters worse, many less scrupulous retailers are also happy to sell them to kids weeks before Guy Fawkes.

The parallels between the US gun law controversy and fireworks in NZ are eerily similar. A few crazed lunatics go on a shooting spree and responsible gun owners fear getting penalised. Sadly it’s the few bad apples in New Zealand that seem to go stupid with fireworks who are ruining it for the rest who enjoy fireworks every November.

Then there’s the pro gun people who argue that in the US it is their constitutional right to bear arms, regardless of how many kids are killed in each monthly shooting massacre. In New Zealand it is mostly pets and animals that cop the brunt of our crazy fireworks laws, yet some still feel compelled to argue that do-gooders are “ruining their fun”.  

This needn’t be the case. Banning the sale of fireworks to the general public and instead investing in professional fireworks displays managed by trained professionals could see a lot of damage, injury and heartache ended while people still got to enjoy far better fireworks than the box of 30 second fizzers sold each year.

Meanwhile, back in 2015, its already too late. We’re now two weeks away from Guy Fawkes yet we already have the first animal casualty. 

Tiny, a gentle and friendly greyhound was spooked by fireworks being set off at a park by kids - even though Guy Fawkes is still a fortnight away. At the time of writing Tiny has yet to be found and groups of greyhound owners are out searching.

I don’t know about you, but I find it bizarre that New Zealanders feel compelled to celebrate events that took place hundreds of years ago in a country on the other side of the world. You’d think that for all the clamour surrounding getting rid of the Union Jack off our flag,we’d feel a tad inclined to drop what is essentially a UK centric event that has little if not no relevance to New Zealand.

 Last year a petition made it to the Government asking for an end to the sale of fireworks to the general public. Sadly the Government referred it to a select committee who rejected the petition, ignoring 25,000 signatures as well as the phenomenal amount of damage done to property and injuries to animals/kids by fireworks over the years.

The select committee chair, Ruth Dyson said that  she believes that most people act responsibly and enforcing a ban would be tough on police. Well I guess poor Tiny must have encountered two irresponsible people who purchased fireworks from an irresponsible retailer. As for her comment about the Police, they are already doing a tough job, Boo bloody hoo.

Here’s the rub. If the ban did go ahead and even if that meant the life of one animal was saved, or one house was prevented from burn down, then that’s a massively positive outcome. Taking Dyson's comments to their logical extreme, we might as well give up on doing anything because it might be too tough. Perhaps New Zealand needs to grow a pair, especially when a simple and sane solution is within easy reach.

P.S. Several hours after this post was written, Tiny was found and returned home. Ain't happy endings just the best thing ever?