Thursday 11 June 2015

Good News and ...

Jaz appears to have made a full recovery from her snake bite yesterday and that is a relief to both of us. Whether she has learned her lesson and leaves those pesky creatures alone from now on, only time will tell.

The poisoning scandal is on all the forums now, and everyone is waiting to see what happens to the alleged perpetrator. I, for one, would be appalled if this was swept under the carpet. It is a sad fact of life here that animal welfare is so poor. We knew about it before making our decision to live here, and  the same lack of concern for animals seems to be prevalent across the Mediterranean region.

The argument about the teachings of the Greek Orthodox Church (and I am grateful to my friend David from Gracie Towers for his comments) may well be something of an urban myth. I have read in many places that it is part of historical church teaching that animals have no soul, and whether this has contributed to the disregard of animal welfare exhibited by many, but not all, Greek Cypriots I do not know.

At the time of the scandal regarding the dog thrown into the crusher at an hotel, and also at the time of the Cypriot man who was arrested for dragging his dog behind his car, the newspapers were highly critical about the church here and its teachings. It may be a thing of the past but the allegation keeps rearing its head. Urban myth or not, we both love animals and we have Cypriot friends who love their animals even more than us, if that is possible.

So where does this island go from here? It is reported in some circles that there may be 170,000 stray dogs on Cyprus and an uncountable number of cats. The animal charities have closed their doors to strays as they are stretched to the limit. It has been written that the municipalities are responsible for these poor animals and some dogs have been taken in. But this just leads to euthanasia.

The problem seems insoluble given the numbers involved and the parlous financial state of the island.

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