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Animal lover searches for a good home
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KE Le loves animals, so much so that she established a stray animal shelter last year. She now cares for seven cats and more than 20 dogs.
While she loves the animals, her life has been difficult since it is expensive, her mother is against it and neighbors always complain about the animals.
The house they rent in a Yuhang District village is shabby. It looks as though it may collapse if the wind blows a bit stronger. Sunshine penetrates through the tiny holes on the roof on sunny days. The interior is also dilapidated and dimly lighted. Animal food is scattered around.
She lives with the animals and spends hours cleaning every day.
“The living conditions here are very poor, but I picked it because of the low rent,” Ke told Shanghai Daily. “It costs only 4,000 yuan (US$645) for one year. Nonetheless, I cannot continue living here due to all the complaints from neighbors.
“I cannot control the dogs. When one dog barks, the others begin to bark in rapid succession. Neighbors hate it.”
Ke and her animals have been forced to move six times within a year. They are now facing a seventh move.
Once she and the animals settle down in a place, it’s not long before neighbors report to the local government that they are disturbed by the noise and fear getting bitten by the dogs. Ke has no choice but to move over and over again.
“My dogs are very lovely, they never bite people,” said the 26-year-old, but her neighbors never listen.
Although she has lived here for two months, the landlord says he has no alternative but to ask them to leave because of the neighbors’ complaint.
Ke is familiar with moving.
“We once moved three times in a month. The longest period we stayed in a fixed place was seven months, while the shortest was only three days,” she said. “Moving here and there costs me a lot of money and energy.
“Now, I finally have found an ideal place for my animals. It is a farmhouse at the foot of a hill in Fuyang County,” she says. “It has a big yard where my dogs can chase each other and play around. The best part is that it has no neighbors. I hope we can stay there for a long time.”
Ke said her connection with stray animals started in 2004, when she took home a stray cat. Later she started work at an animal shelter in Xihu District, but she quit due to different management ideas.
Last year, she and other animal protection volunteers rescued 400 cats from a slaughterhouse in Jiubao Town. Ke said she knew there was no place to accommodate the ill-fated cats.
“We cannot free these captive cats without authorization from inspection and quarantine officials, thus, these poor cats had nowhere to stay,” Ke said. “Pet hospitals are too expensive. At that moment, it occurred to me to build an animal shelter.”
Since then, Ke has spent more than 20,000 yuan renting houses. As for veterinary and food expenses, she doesn’t keep track.
“I have overdrawn four credit cards,” Ke said. “I felt pretty sad when someone who knows nothing about my stray animal shelter thought it brought me a profit. That is ridiculous.”
Ke sometimes earns a little money when helping take care of dogs whose owners leave Hangzhou temporarily, but this only covers some of the rent.
Volunteers sometimes provide animal shelters with dog and cat food. In the meantime, Ke will cook rice and other food to feed the animals when the donated food is not enough.
Given people’s suspicion that she makes a profit from the animal shelter, Ke never accepts money, only donations of animal food and clothing.
Ke’s original idea, she said, when starting the shelter was to turn it into an adoption center. However, she said few people want to adopt rural dogs, the most common variety among her stray canines.
Within two months of opening, she went from seven to 20 dogs.
“People only want to adopt my Border collie, Pomeranian and poodle. Downtown residents think rural dogs are for farmers. They are only interested in owning exotic dogs, which they consider more fashionable.
“After one year of caring for them, I have already have cultivated a love for these dogs and cats, so I will keep them until they die.”
Last month, the annual Yulin Dog Meat Festival was held in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. A large number of rural dogs were butchered for food.
Ke said it’s wrong.
“Such a festival should not exist,” she said. Although organizers promise that pet dogs and working dogs are not butchered, I think rural dogs are also human beings’ friends. They accompany people and alert people when earthquakes and other dangers come. I hope more people will treat rural dogs as well as other exotic dogs.”
Ke said she also has a difficult time with her mother, who is against the animal shelter.
Her mother had been kept in the dark about it for one year, but Ke said her mom found out about it on a television program that reported on the shelter.
Her mother wants Ke to dispose of the dogs and cats quickly and go back home. Ke said she won’t do it.
“These animals are living creatures and I cannot abandon them,” she said. “Although my animal shelter is not as large or as other professional as others, I will keep it for good. Protecting dogs and cats is my lifelong career.”
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