Jack Manfred Sparrow and thoughts on KL's stray dogs

M2, PZ, and I met Jack Manfred Sparrow tonight during supper at Solaris Mont Kiara. He is a homeless gap-toothed, one-eyed, grey, ticked tabby kitty. He approached us and we called to him. The friendly dude came to us and was very affectionate. I scratched his head and he lapped up the attention. His left eye is nice and green, his right eye... well we're not sure there's an eye in there. What we could see looked like an empty red socket. Naturally he pulled at our heartstrings and we had to feed him. M2 gave him a piece of her roti telur but he wasn't terribly interested in that so she went to the 711 next door and bought him some soft cat chow. He finished that in about two seconds so I went and got more. I was hoping he'd stay after he was done eating but he quickly got bored of us and walked away with a last look that said, "See ya.. Chicks like you try to take me home all the time". It was quite a distance to my car (I had parked in the basement of another block) and I had no carrier with me so I let him leave. I didn't want to end up wrestling with him and scaring him away forever. I'll go back tomorrow with my carrier and look for him at the same restaurant. Looks like he hangs around there a lot and that's where he gets his chow. Fingers crossed he'll be there!!

Kind of a sad night tonight. We also came across a mama dog and her skittish pup. Mama dog was friendly and let me pet her.. Pup ran off in fear. We opened three packets of cat kibble for them (that's all we had) and walked away hoping Pup would come back once we were out of sight. On the way home we saw another two adult stray dogs at the roadside, and the usual 4 resident stray dogs outside M2's condo compound that I occasionally feed. There are so many homeless animals in Malaysia. It's depressing. Best not to call too much attention to them though.. If the city council dog-catchers get them, they end up at one of Malaysia's notorious pounds and to me, that is a fate worse than being homeless or dead. Anything is better than ending up at one of the cruel city council pounds. So what can be done? Individuals can rescue and rehome on their own if they have the space, time, and resources. SPCA Selangor can be called upon to catch the dogs but it is very difficult to find homes for mongrels here and sadly a lot end up euthanised. There is no guarantee that homes will be found for these dogs. There are just too many of them and not enough homes. What do you think is better? Being humanely put to sleep? Or being a stray? Your thoughts are appreciated.