Compulsory Pet Care Course
Pet owners can rejoice after the recent spate of events regarding unprofessional grooming and general dissatisfaction over unqualified pet shop owners. The Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has answered this call for help by implementing compulsory pet care courses for all pet shop operators to enable them to handle pets properly and provide continued guidance to pet owners.
Come January 2010, all pet shop operators and staff who have worked for more than six months will have to attend this pet care course taught at Temasek Polytechnic which is supported by the Pet Enterprises and Traders Association and the Workforce Development Agency.
The pet care course which can be done intensively or part time, comprises of sixteen lecture hours, eight workshop hours and include question and answer segments. The objectives are to impart skills and knowledge important for responsible animal care and welfare amongst the pet retail shop personnel as well as to provide knowledge about client education as part of their responsibility in promoting responsible pet ownership. At the end of the course, an MCQ assessment is given and only those who meet at least the 75% attendance requirement, passed assessments and complete the workshop will be awarded the Certificate of Completion for the module.
This is part of Temasek Polytechnic’s veterinary technology diploma, covering areas of laws, animal health, occupational health and client education. There will also be a fee subsidy of up to 90 percent under the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience.
AVA expects a turnout of about 120 out of the 277 pet shops to sign up within the first half of 2010 and expect the rest to follow suit when they update their annual licenses next year.
Dr Maliki believes that the new training programme will be well received by pet lovers and pave the way for a higher standard of animal care. Among the many reasons why such a course was implemented is the rising number of dog attacks (currently at 65 this year) that are brought about because of lack of education. This in turn leads to many dogs being dumped because owners are unable to tolerate their disobedience.
Selina Sebastien, education executive from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Singapore), adds that “the first thing you should do when you get a dog is to sign up for an obedience course.”
The SPCA look forward to the “knock on effects on (pet) owners and owners-to-be” that the course will generate.
Channelnewsasia.com also reported Dr Maliki announcing that “as a result of risk management measures such as rabies vaccines, blood testing and microchip identification for animals, the AVA will waive quarantine requirements from January 1 for pets imported from countries with minimal rabies risk.”
Thus, dogs and cats imported from places such as Japan, Hong Kong and Norway are now able to enter Singapore without the need for quarantine. As of now, pets imported from countries other than Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland are quarantined for 30 days.
