Dear Editor,

This is in response to the Gulf Times article dated August 13th 2021 titled “Stray dog menace growing on Qatar’s cycling tracks”. I am writing this on behalf of several animal lovers like myself and to give a voice to the voiceless dogs.
Dogs, even feral dogs, rarely attack without provocation, and this is not some sort of serious epidemic. When you allow one-sided articles like the ones on August 13th to be published, it does nothing but inflame the already incendiary mindset that exists among the community regarding the issue, leading to mass hysteria and scapegoating of feral dogs. This, then, leads to authorities taking actions such as poisoning or shooting stray dogs, that did not ask to be born or be abused or be homeless or be hungry or have to fight for their everyday survival. Moreover, the situation being portrayed as a rampant widespread phenomenon rather than the experience of a very few people does your journalistic veracity no credit.
The reason animal lovers are taking up issue with such articles is that we often see things in the media out here that condemn or incriminate stray animals, especially dogs, as a menace and a threat to society that must be exterminated, but we rarely see anyone take the time or effort to investigate or identify more important issues, such as the need for a well-organised government-funded nationwide TNR (trap, neuter, return) programme run by paid employees rather than overworked volunteers to humanely reduce the number of strays, construction of high-capacity government-funded animal shelters, closure of the unethical “pet shops where animals are kept in deplorable conditions and strict regulations on the sale of animals as pets so as to promote adoption wherever possible. These measures would not only solve the stray animal population problem without resorting to drastic measures that involve killing, but would also create a more compassionate and well-rounded society where animals are seen as sentient beings who feel pain, hunger, joy, and grief, just like us, and are therefore treated with respect and dignity, just like us.
One of the main reasons we have so many stray dogs is because people buy expensive purebred dogs who don’t belong here and then abandon them. If we look at it chronologically, the stray dog (and cat) problem of Qatar is a problem created by humans, yet the ones condemned to suffer for it are the victims of our greed, the animals themselves. And now they are being punished for acting on their survival instincts. How does that make any sense?
We need animal abuse laws that actually deter and prevent them from committing acts of violence against animals.
I write this in the hope that you will publish this so that the same people who saw the previous article may also read this and see the stray dog “menace” from a different perspective. I hope they start to think of them as creatures with the ability to feel pain and fear at abuse and to feel joy and gratitude at kindness. I hope they see the nursing dogs often killed by people from the eyes of the puppies who lost the mother who fed them and groomed them and protected them like our own mothers did. I hope they think of how a mother dog whose puppies were killed for sport or from lack of food or water grieves for her lost children and stands over their corpses as if she could protect them even in death. Or the dog standing over his friend’s run-over body in the street, refusing to leave its side. The only real difference between us and animals is that we speak different languages, and as such are unable to decipher their cries for help, which makes us indifferent towards them and act as if they do not matter. But they DO matter. We are not owners of this earth, but rather, we share it with its other occupants.
I hope you will do the right thing and help us shed light on the important issues and perspectives I have highlighted in my letter, which may allow us to take a step forward in our treatment of the stray dogs in Qatar.

Regards and best wishes,
Samah Khan