I refer to the malaysiakini report Howls of protest over 'nab the dog' contest .

Just when I thought I had seen and heard it all, along comes another bizarre suggestion from a government in the East, namely to sponsor a stray dog-catching competition for the public.

Stray animals are our fault; they are there because we neglect to concentrate on proper neutering programmes which require some effort on our part and because too many people simply don't care. They dump their dogs and cats out into the world to fend for themselves

And I can see that in Malaysia, it is more a case of defending themselves against everyone else including those who should be putting into place compassionate methods of solving this problem, namely the government.

Yet you are gleefully joining in to make the lives of these animals even worse by recommending a 'competition' to catch and eventually destroy them so that tourists cannot see how bad you are at looking after the most helpless in your country.

I, for one, will never visit a country who cannot look after its sentient beings in a compassionate manner and find you contemptible for even making a suggestion such as this and promoting such a disgusting event.

The writer is chairperson, Capetonians against Animal Abuse and editor for 'Animal Activist Network News'.