Today Online
Online Only - The heartless father
Updated 05:04 PM Jun 18, 2009
Letter from Joanna Yeo
I refer to “You sneeze, it suffers” from Dr Tan Chek Wee (June 17) and can’t help but feel utterly disgusted with the way the family has been treating their pet dog.
Sad to say, this behaviour is not uncommon. Many families abandon their dogs when they have newborns/children in the house. They fail to realise that dogs also have feelings and do not deserve to be treated in this horrible way. The most often-quoted reason why they choose to give away their dogs is the myth that dogs can cause allergies in children.
This is not accurate. Studies have shown that children who grow up with dogs tend to have a stronger immune system and will not be prone to so many allergies. It is shameful that the GP in the story, a doctor who’s supposed to know better, doesn’t seem to have this most basic of knowledge.
I am disgusted most with the husband in the report who had the pet dog before he got married and became a father. I cannot comprehend how someone can be so heartless to abandon a loyal friend who had been there for him all these years just because he now has another “object of desire” - a child of his own. I hope that he will not get abandoned by his child when he is old and becomes an “unwanted object".
