You become responsible forever,for what you have tamed

Lyceum Student Scientific Society

English Language Section

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

Chuprina Valentina, 7G

Municipal State- Financed

Educational Establishment

“Lyceum №6 “

Guided by : Popova K.S.

Gorno-Altaisk, 2017

Content:

1. Introduction……………………………………………………………....3
2. Stray animals as a problem……………………………………………….4
3. Solutions to the problem of stray animals………………………….........6
4. The survey among the pupils………………………………………........8
5. Conclusion……………………………………………………………….12
6. Literature………………………………………………………………...13
7. Suplement……………………………………………………………….14

Introduction.

Imagine you are alone on the street. You have nowhere to go, there is no one waiting for you or worrying about you anywhere in the whole city. There are hundreds of people going by, yet you cannot talk to them, they do not even notice you are suffering badly while lying here on a cold pavement, unaided, neglected, exhausted… If animals are able to think and feel which is quite possible, that is probably what numerous homeless dogs and cats you are passing during the day are experiencing. Is it fair though? And do we really have right to close the eyes to the fact of numerous living being suffering and struggling for life completely ignored and abandoned?

The currency of or work is caused by the fact that homeless or stray animals are a widespread problem in Russia and in Gorno-Altaisk in particular. Thousands of cats and dogs become stray every year; their lives are turning into nightmare. Statistics are sad –the majority of animal tragedies are the work of cruel humans.

The main goal of our work is to pay attention to the phenomena “homeless animals”.

To reach the goal we were:

• to find out the reasons of this problem,
• to find out the ways to handle it,
• to find out the student’s attitude to this phenomena,
• to analyze what is done in our town to help homeless people.

Such methods of researching as analysis, comparison and opinion poll were used.

Stray animals as a problem.

These days millions of animals are stray, lost, or in shelters. Statistics of animals is dreadful and, unfortunately, the numbers are rising every day. The problem of homeless and displaced animals is a huge one. Shelters today are overloaded. Domestic animals are left on the roadside doomed to take care for themselves. Pet shops and breeders carry on selling animals to the general public without considering the conditions or quality of life animals are put into after leaving the shops’ doors.

Most people enjoy taking care of animals. They even feel some sort of emotional connection with their domestic pets, treating them like rational creatures endowed with emotions, able to realize some facts and to experience sentiments. However, an animal we meet on the street we regard as being a beast, dull and primitive, deprived of any ability to feel. Just take few minutes to realize the dreadfulness of conditions they are doomed to struggle in. What if they actually are able to “think” and “feel”? Just imagine what they are going through.

Unlike homeless people, homeless animals have never had any choice. Most of them were either born already homeless or abandoned by their rightful owners. Animals that are kept in normal conditions never escape their homes. They cannot get addicted to alcohol or drugs; they cannot lose their job because of law-breaking practices or gamble their property away. Can they talk, or express dissatisfaction, or ask for help? They can only watch you passing by with those sad, hungry, sometimes wild eyes. However, their inability to express feelings, fears and pains doesn’t mean they have none. They need help just as any other suffering living beings do, and their being silent in no way means they wouldn’t cry for help if they could.

The appearance of stray animals in the streets is not only immoral but also dangerous. Poorly groomed and unvaccinated, they can spread dangerous infections, insects and parasites. That is why many people justify shooting or poisoning stray dogs. Unfortunately, there are many so called dog-hunters, who believe to help cities to get rid of homeless animals. This is a phenomenon, observed mainly in Russia, Ukraine and Bulgaria, whereby activists and volunteers band together to rid the streets of their towns and villages of stray animals (not only dogs but also rats, crows and cats) by killing them. Dog hunters use methods that may harm domestic pets too, for example, they leave poisoned food in parks.

Most people justify own inaction by seemingly reasonable arguments such as “We cannot help everyone”, “We do not want to help someone unable to appreciate what we do for them”, “There should be some governmentally regulated system, spontaneous actions are ineffective”, etc.  But we shouldn’t forget that even a little help counts. If everyone gets interested and notice that nowadays there are nonprofit organizations that could submit a helping hand to make the whole situation better. If being ready and able to help, you can face various options among which you are free to choose. You can make donations to official nonprofit organizations, participate in adoption programs, provide assistance to shelters, etc. – your choice will depend on what resources you own and how serious your intentions are.

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress

can be judged by the way that its animals are treated.

Mahatma Gandhi

Solutions to the problem of homeless animals.

The alarming growths in the population of stray animals and animals in shelters provesthat something needs to be done to help solve this, and fast. Here are some ways you can contribute in the effort to save all those homeless animals from further misery.

• Be a responsible pet owner. This should be number one on the list. There won't be any homeless animals if all pet owners take proper care of their own pets. Have them spayed or neutered. Not only will this help in the population control of animals, but save your pet from particular illnesses such as certain cancers and other hormone-induced conditions.
• Volunteer. Almost all animal rescue shelters operate on small budgets. This is why volunteering will definitely help. If you cannot spend  your time to physically help care for homeless animals in the shelters, then volunteer in some other ways. You can offer your services in their public relations committee. You can even raise funds by gathering financial support from friends. You can also help attract attention by  distributing fliers or leafleats of responsible pet ownership. There are numerous ways to help. All you need to do to offer your service.
• Promote the adoption of homeless animals. Animal shelters can only accommodate so much homeless animals. When a shelter becomes overpopulated, diseases in the animals spread. Tragically some shelters are forced to commit euthanasia rather than allow more animals to get sick and suffer.Convince your friends or relatives who aren't pet owners to become one.

Russian projects for stray animals

1. TeddyFood: in this application, a user can select an animal, order a treat, a service or an accessory for it and monitor online what use their selected animal is making of their gift. Each animal is kept in a separate comfortable doghouse fitted with an automatic feeder and a video camera.

2. DogDating: a service for finding company for dogs from a shelter.You can just walk the dog from that shelter. The service works with seven shelters in large Russian cities.

3. Sheremetyevsky shelter in Moscow — practically the only dog shelter in Russia for fighting breeds. Animals do not stay here long because they soon find a new home. Several hundred dogs pass through this shelter every year.

While there are many homeless animals, there are surely solutions to solve this. We should never ignore the problems of those, who we are responsible for.

As for our town, unfortunately we don’t have a special shelter for stray animals. All we have is volunteer’s help. There are some caring people who organized a regional public organisation «Kotop’os». You can get all information in social nets. They help with medical care for stray animals and try to find them permanent owners. They are glad to accept any help: you can donate money, bring some food or medicine or just to distribute leaflets about the animals that need new owners. Also there is another official organization “Temporary Station for dogs”, that cooperates with town services. They have built spacious cages. Unfortunately, a dog has only 7 days to find new owners or previous ones.  Of course, it’s not enough for our town. You can see homeless animals in every yard, in every street.

The survey among the pupils.

We conducted an opinion poll among the pupils of 7-11 forms in our lyceum. Sixty schoolchildren took part in it. The results of the poll show the attitude to the problem. Let’s see what we have found out.

50 pupils consider the problem of homeless animals urgentin Gorno-Altaisk.  6 teenagers do not agree and one of them is not sure.

27 pupils are sure that homeless animals are dangerous for people. 25 are not sure and only 8 do not think that stray animals are dangerous.

Also we asked what we shall do with homeless animals. 55 teenagers consider that special services should catch and put them in shelters. Luckily, only 4 think that special services should catch and drug them to sleep and 1 person doesn’t know what to do with them.

7 respondents think that people who threw away their pets deserve criminal punishment.10 are sure that a fine is better and 40 believe that they should pay for the animals in shelter. 3 teenagers don’t know.

46 teenagers have a pet at home and 14 don’ t have it.

We were glad to find out that 34 pupils can take a homeless animal to home. While 26 are not ready to do it.

Unfortunately, 38 teenagers don’t know about any organizations that help stray animals. Only 22 know about  “Kotop’os”.

The results show that pupils are not indifferent to the problem, but they lack information.

Conclusion.

So, on the basis of the research we came to the following conclusion:

• People, including students of our lyceum, aren’t indifferent to the problem of homeless animals in Gorno-Altaisk and ready to help them, but not everyone knows how to do it.
• Some Russian cities have useful experience, which can be adopted in Gorno-Altaisk.
• A shelter should be created in our town.

We can suggest some solutions to this problem:

1. It’s necessary to create laws on federal level concerning responsibility of animal’s owners, utilization of food waste and support of public organisations.
2. People should use only humane measures to homeless animals.
3. Education of citizens on this problem.

We all have to finally look around and realize: homeless animals cry out for help, and we have to provide them with necessary aid. As one little fox has once said “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” It is up to all of us to turn this world into a nicer place for domestic animals. Making city streets look better by killing off innocent creatures is just a way too cruel to be ignored. So shouldn’t we finally put our humaneness into practice and justify our right to rule the world? I guess we should, and that is our moral obligation.

Literature.

1. https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-animal-homelessness
2. www.howtodothings.com/pets-animals/how-to-help-homeless-animals
3. http://www.dogandcat.ru/node/4404 

4. http://www.saveanimals.ru/node/114

5. http://www.animalsprotectiontribune.ru/
6.  Too many cats and dogs.  Dorothea Friz , MONDO ANIMALE ONLUS, England
7. Животные в городе. Сб. тр. Научно-практ. конф МСХА/ИПЭЭ, 2000-2003, т. 1-2.-238 страниц

Supplement.