The Tribune

BY DIANE PHILLIPS

A TRAUMATISED dog chained in South Beach was rescued from an area littered with the bones of several other dogs, raising fears that the animals were tortured.

Bahamas Alliance For Animal Rights and Kindness (BAARK!) animal traffic coordinator Stephanie Kesten said the bones of about six dogs were found in the area near South Beach Pools.

“There was evidence that a dog’s carcass was still there,” she said. “There were dog skulls. Puppy and dogs that were burned. There was a chain with a collar, but no dog attached to the collar.”

“There was a bag of bones, all in the surrounding immediate area, which makes us suspect that this was a location where animal abuse and torture could have been taken place.”

The Tribune

October 4, 2024

Tribune reporter Earyel Bowleg’s shocking story in Wednesday’s paper about a dog named Oaks found starving, abused, tied with three chains and surrounded by the carcasses and bones of as many as six dead animals set off a maelstrom of activity.

The accompanying video of the tortured animal was almost too much to bear. A normally dismissive public was outraged. Stunned and emboldened, Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources Jomo Campbell rose up in the House of Assembly, holding ahigh The Tribune, horrified at the image and story of abuse, saying it must stop.

More stories emerged about dogs used for fighting, being left in the broiling sun with no shade or water, panting, nearly dead, dogs tied to chain link fences unable to move far enough away to avoid lying in their own excrement.

People who paid little or no attention before were suddenly of a single voice, shouting for an end to animal cruelty.

This single incident in an area near South Beach Pools that led to a long-overdue hue and cry seems to have galvanised slow to react forces into action. That is a very good thing, but there is so much more to the story. Animal cruelty has been one of the most understated scandals of shame and disgrace for decades on end in The Bahamas.

We boast of sun, sea, sand, of sparkling waters and dazzling resorts, of leisure-filled days and culinary-sodden nights and ignore the reality that in our midst and just below our kneecaps some 17,000 stray dogs go begging for a scrap of food, a bowl of water, a home.

We work, we bear children, we go to church or synagogue and pray, some among us party and dance away the evening until the stars give way to the morning sun, oblivious to the pain of the animals without shelter, suffering from disease, starvation and neglect.

We know – because we have been told over and over – that you can judge the character of a people by the way they treat their animals but we just don’t seem to care. We watch youngsters through stones at a dog and wonder why that little boy grows up an angry teen and feels nothing when he pulls a gun on a victim in a robbery.

We ignore the fact that we have a government department charged with picking up unwanted animals and arranging for them to be euthanized – not every now and then. Every single week. Sometimes a few, sometimes many. Every week. If Animal Control gets a call about a stray or an owner decides he or she can no longer afford to feed or be bothered keeping the dogs they thought they wanted, Animal Control has the ceaseless unenviable task of collecting them, knowing they will be put down.

“Everyone wants dogs but once they get ‘em, they don’ wanna take care of ‘em no more and they do crazy things,” explains one of the workers assigned the heartbreaking task. Sometimes that worker gets a call to collect multiple animals from a single owner who wanted one, then another and another until he or she realised it was all too much and by calling Animal Control is signing their death warrant. The dogs are picked up and within days euthanised by a vet. That’s despite the fact that those who work in the department may be getting fewer than the expected number of calls because the main phone number at Animal Control, I am informed by another individual, has been down since last December.

“We get calls every day, sometimes a few, sometimes a lot. There is an overpopulation of stray animals and people think they want dogs till they find out what it really takes to feed and take care of them, to take them to a vet if something’s wrong. These are animals with feelings, not like shells you collect on the beach and can throw back if you don’t want them anymore.”

Then there is the unintentional cruelty that goes unchecked because domestic pet owners are unaware of the dangers of cooked bones. It’s one of the key messages that the Washington, DC-based Pet Food Institute (PFI) shares as widely as possible including on its Bahamas and Caribbean Facebook and social media platforms. Cooked bones, especially pork and chicken, can splinter, cause spleen or other organ damage, become stuck, cause vomiting, constipation and even lead to death.

The incident at South Beach Pools, discovered by one of the dedicated volunteers from BAARK, made news. But how many others are there in storage lots and abandoned properties all over New Providence that don’t catch the attention of a reporter. Months ago, I reported sickly starving dogs tied up in a lot next to a sparkling new building on Prince Charles Drive in Nassau. Bones and mango seeds littered the ground. There was no sign of water.

As the Bahamas Humane Society prepares to mark its 100th anniversary, and as PFI Bahamas finalises plans for a PIFA Puppy Bowl as one of its heathy animal initiatives and as BAARK continues its tireless work of educating, spaying and neutering, let us each vow to be more sensitive to the needs of animals, stray or otherwise. They ask nothing of us except a little kindness. And the kinder we are to those who look up at us with eyes of wonder and gratitude and thank us with tails that wag, the kinder we will be to one another.