The Batu Gajah District Council recently introduced a new rule that dog owners seek consent from their neighbours before applying for a dog license. According to the council, this will ensure the better management of pets as well as reduce complaints from residents of a neighbourhood.

Apparently the district in Perak isn’t the first to introduce such a ruling as the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council in Selangor has a similar requirement that has proven successful.

As someone who grew up with neighbours that kept more than ten dogs at any one time, I have to honestly say I am very pleased with the ruling and can’t wait for other district councils in other states to adopt it as well.

You see, my neighbour in Penang was the worst kind anyone could live next to. Not only did they tie their dogs to the fence separating our houses, the dogs were left to bark all day and well into the night.

My neighbours didn’t care for the poor animals either. The dogs were often starving and thirsty and were regularly kicked and beaten. Come to think of it, they were seldom taken out for walks either. They were left to sit in their own faeces and the filth and stench emanating from the other side infuriated us no end.

Once in a while, the dogs would escape and sneak into our homes in the middle of the night or hide in the bushes of our neighbourhood, only to pounce at and chase anyone passing by. This terrified us especially since we had to walk to school every morning. By the raggedy look of the dogs, God only knew what contagious diseases they were carrying.

I remember helping my parents send complaint letters to our local council. I even contacted the council by phone to report the matter.

While council officers did inspect my neighbour’s house, nothing came of it. Instead, my neighbours were emboldened to rear even more dogs.

If only we had the ruling back then, my family would never have consented to our neighbours having dogs. Perhaps then we could have saved a few dogs from a life of torture and ourselves from a life of constant duress.

Then again, my neighbour did not only have dogs – they reared cats, pigeons, rabbits, ducks, turkeys and chickens too. Just like the dogs, the other animals were a nuisance to the neighbourhood and we had to put up with it.

“Animal farm” aside, our neighbour was inconsiderate in many other ways. I remember how their speaker system blasted the music they listened to and the movies they watched right into OUR living room.

It was as if they all suffered from some genetic form of deafness. I swear, I could even hear the audio loud and clear from the very back of our house.

Recently, my neighbour’s mentally ill sister moved in with them. One time, from out of the blue, the woman started screaming at my mom who was innocently hanging out the laundry.

Another time, she lit a few matches and threw it into our compound. And once she sneaked to our front gate and vandalised our mail box.

Fearing the worst, we informed our neighbour about their sister but when they turned a deaf ear, we were forced to lodge a police report instead.

And my neighbours children? Apart from making noise far exceeding permitted decibel levels, they too like the dogs were whacked regularly by their parents and we had to put up with their screams of pain.

They were also a danger to the neighbourhood considering they thought nothing of riding motorcycles at age ten or driving cars before hitting 15. Their “expertise” also included stealing our rambutans and cikus, besides playing a significant part in torturing their dogs.

So you see, the new ruling, since it was introduced with the objective to guarantee the peace of mind of a neighbourhood’s residents, should include every other aspect of one’s life as well.

Apart from dogs, why not have separate rulings for noise pollution from home theatre systems, harassment from mentally-ill relatives or getting run over by unruly children riding bikes and driving cars?

Good God, why don’t district councils go all the way and insist new residents to a neighbourhood obtain the consent of existing residents before they even think of moving into their newly purchased homes?

You see, it’s not just about the dogs. If we do not like our immediate neighbours for some reason or other, it is human nature to find fault with everything and anything they do – dogs or no dogs.

Fa Abdul is an FMT columnist.

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