Two animal shelters

I went with the Vegetarian Society Singapore to two animals shelters across the border at Pekan Nanas in Johor today.

One was Noah’s Ark Natural Animal Sanctuary (NANAS) and the other was Animal Paradise.

It rained quite heavily about noon today and when we got to NANAS, it was wet. So when we got into the animal shelter, we were greeted by lots of wet paws.


The dogs at NANAS are free ranging and they run about the compound freely.

The cats, on the other hand, roam about in a house of their own, separated from the dogs.

It amazing how much the animals yearned for people's attention and affection. They squeezed around me and let me pet and scratch them. I basically came out all muddied with paw prints.






Over at Animal Paradise, there were no eager dogs to greet us. Instead, it was a big Buddha statue that welcome us to the animal sanctuary. According to the guide it was salvaged from the Haw Par Villa in Singapore.

Things were quite different over at Animal Paradise. There more types of animals. Besides dogs and cats, there were cows, turtles, pigs, camels, monkeys and various birds like pheasants, geese, turkeys and ostriches.

The animals were caged or penned up. According to the guide, the dogs were some times released and roamed with the compounds on days when there are no guests.

But I found the two places quite different and it took me a while to figure out what's was it.

It was affection.


There was a lot more affection at NANAS. The dogs were allowed to roam freely. Visitors are encouraged to interact and get friendly with the dogs. The animals have names and stories behind them. Even the cat house was made like a home. There were a lot more affection and attention give to the animals.

Over at Animal Paradise, the philosophy seems to be different. They came from the perspective of saving lives. I do not doubt that they took good care of the animals. But it appears to lack a little personal touch.

There was a sign that warned against touching and getting close to the animals. While the cages were clean and well kept, and quite spacious, they felt very sanitized, harsh and stark. It does not have the homely feel that NANAS has.

What I did not like was that besides acting as a shelter for abandoned animals, it was also a place for "animal liberation". It's something I could not quite agree with.

Animal liberation is a common practice in Chinese Buddhism. According to the guide, the fishes in the big tanks are "liberated" by several Buddhists groups.

I took a look at the fishes. They were ornamental fishes like koi. And this is where I start to find it a little difficult to understand. I could understand if the intention was to save the fishes from being killed. But in this case, these were ornamental fishes. They were in no danger of being killed. To me, it seems that they were simply being "saved" from a small fish tank and got "liberated" into a bigger fish tank.

While some Buddhists have started to see the problems with modern practices of animal liberation, there are many who still stick to it rather dogmatically. (I'll say the best way of liberation is to liberate them from your dinning table!) This seems to be a case of doing animal liberation for the sake of doing it.

Nonetheless, it is great to see people saving and caring for the animals. I just wish they would reconsider the animal liberation part of their operations.

As we left for dinner, I pondered over the stark difference between the two shelters. The founder of NANAS is a Catholic and the volunteers and supporters are more "English educated" and tends to be those that kept pets. Animal Paradise is sponsored by a Buddhist organisation and the volunteers are Chinese educated. The difference showed in the way the shelters were managed, and I wondered why it would be so ...