THE streets of the Kingdom are alive. Yes, they are teeming and crawling with thousands of abandoned cats. This is an annual problem here in Saudi Arabia. Every year a large portion of the population leaves on vacation in the summer months. The last act for many of these folks before they head off to the airport and a few months of fun is to throw their sweet, adorable pet cats into the street to fend for themselves.
Every night as I walk through my neighborhood in the Eastern Province, I see cats everywhere. They are sleeping on cars and in doorways. They rummage in trash dumpsters and dig through garbage piles at construction sites, desperate for a bite to eat. The silence of the predawn hours is regularly shattered by the sounds of cats snarling and hissing at each other in the empty lot across from my bedroom window. When food and water are in short supply, life in cat communities becomes grim.
It’s an ugly situation that will only get worse in a few weeks. Soon viral diseases will be rampant among these homeless animals. It’s only a matter of time before the sun will rise every morning on dozens of animals either dead or dying by the roadside.
Most people simply do not understand that taking in a pet cat is a long-term commitment. Cats that are kept indoors can have a life expectancy of up to 20 years! So if people are looking for a cute furry creature for their children to play with for a short while, they would be better off considering hamsters, which have a natural life cycle of just a couple of years. Cats that roam wild outdoors have a very limited life span — generally three years or less.
In the Eastern Province, the People’s Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) is struggling to feed hundreds of homeless animals in their care. The organization is urging people to adopt a more responsible attitude toward pet ownership. In their monthly newsletter they have published information for expatriates on how to take pets back home once employment in Saudi Arabia ends.
PAWS points out that for many expatriates, it is relatively inexpensive to take pets back home. The exception is UK residents who must bear the cost of quarantine fees in addition to transportation and medical expenses. For most pet owners though, all that is really required is a little cash and some advanced planning.
To transport a pet all airlines require that the animal meet certain health standards. These include a current anti-rabies vaccination. The cost for the vaccination is SR100 and it must be administered to the animal at least 30 days before departure. For the animal to board the plane it must have a Certificate of Health which can be obtained from a doctor of veterinary medicine for about SR130. The Certificate of Health is valid for just 10 days and it must still be valid upon the pet’s arrival at the final destination for the pet to be allowed to board the initial flight out of the Kingdom.
Most pets travel as accompanying baggage in a pressurized, climate controlled area of a plane’s cargo hold. Such cargo areas have limited space. That’s why reservations to fly a pet must be made in advance. Before the flight, some airlines request that the animal and its pet carrier are taken to the airline’s cargo facility so their staff can ensure that the container meets both airline and national regulations for the shipping of live animals.
A few airlines will allow passengers to take small pets onboard as carry-on baggage. These pets must be transported in carriers small enough to fit under a seat and the animals may not be let out into the cabin during the flight. For further information on expatriating a pet, contact PAWS through their website — geocities.com/pawsinsaudi.
Some expatriates are faced with difficulty in taking their pets with them when they leave Saudi Arabia because they do not have living quarters set up back in their homelands. In these instances, PAWS has been offering to provide foster care for these pets until the owners are ready to receive the animals. The owner simply pays the veterinarian fees upfront, arranges transportation and a carrier, and PAWS does the rest.
For example, PAWS provided foster care to a cat for several weeks while its owner relocated to San Francisco. Once the family was settled in their new home, the cat was repatriated to San Francisco via Amsterdam. At the animal reception center in Schiphol, the cat was rested, fed and watered, and the pet carrier was cleaned out. Then the Amsterdam airport staff put the animal on its connecting flight. The cat was reunited with its family after a 24-hour trip. The cost of sending the cat home to San Francisco was SR994 — not much to pay for a beloved friend.
There are some abandoned pets that just cannot find new homes in the Kingdom. Dogs are a special problem. Abandoned dogs are often confined in small kennels long-term or destroyed because there is no other option. In December 2000, PAWS tried a new approach to dealing with these animals. Through the generosity of donors the organization was able to raise the funds to fly two dogs that were “unadoptable,” out of Saudi Arabia to an animal sanctuary in the United States.
Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah is the USA’s largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals. It is a “no-kill” refuge. This means that animals living at the sanctuary are never destroyed except when compassion for a suffering animal demands euthanasia, as in the final stages of a painful disease. There are never fewer than 1,800 animals at the sanctuary on any given day — sometimes more, depending on space and available accommodations. The majority are dogs and cats, but there are also horses, burros, wild birds, geese, rabbits, goats, and other assorted weird and wonderful creatures. The sanctuary is supported by donations from animal lovers worldwide. The adoption of the Dhahran dogs, named Jessie and Zoe, was not Best Friends’ first involvement with the Kingdom’s animal lovers.
Chapter 46 in a new book about the sanctuary is titled “Oscar Heginbotham” and is all about how Bonnie and Ron Heginbotham, an expatriate couple living in Dhahran, saved the life of “Oscar,” a Saudi cat. The cat had attacked Bonnie and was about to be destroyed because it was considered to be a danger to humans. Rather than see the creature killed, the Heginbothams arranged for Oscar to be flown to Best Friends where he lives happily ever after with other cat pals. The book, “Best Friends — The True Story of the World’s Most Beloved Animal Sanctuary,” by Samantha Glenn can be ordered online from amazon.com.
The Best Friends website contains a wealth of useful information for pet owners as well as stories that all animal lovers would enjoy. Right now on the site there is a feature about caring for pets during the hot summer months that is a must-read for all pet owning residents of the Kingdom. Check it out at bestfriends.org.
