That’s precisely the problem for many dogs unlucky enough to have lived with inconsiderate people within cramped flats in congested cities like Hong Kong. When “rescued” by animal welfare organizations, some dogs have spent their entire lives in cages. Their previous owners never took them outside, not even for exercise.

One such dog is Ambrose, an adult golden retriever who recently came into the care of Lamma Animal Protection (LAP), a Hong Kong charity.

“Ambrose is affectionate, loves a stroke or a tickle and gazes back with his please-love-me brown eyes,” said Sheila McClelland, LAP’s founder.

But taking Ambrose for a walk proved challenging. “He didn’t even know how to use stairs,” said Sheila. “They terrified him. Tragically, that’s common among dogs forced to live in cages.

“Ambrose came to a set of stairs and stopped. He didn’t know what to do. He’d been a prisoner.”

But once coaxed onto a staircase, Ambrose quickly realized it wasn’t dangerous. “We walked all the way from the Mid-Levels (above Hong Kong’s Central Business District) to the ferry piers,” Sheila said. “By the time we’d finished, he’d had a great training exercise. We’d reach a few steps, shallow ones, and then a flat bit, followed by more steps. By the end, he felt very confident.”

Sometimes Sheila accepts invitations to speak at Hong Kong schools. Often she asks the young students what they’d most need if planning to adopt a dog. With distressing regularity, one answer, “a cage”, echoes in those classrooms. “Why don’t they say ‘dog food’?” Sheila laments.

Now with stairs at his disposal, Ambrose has become more upwardly mobile. If his luck holds, he’ll be adopted permanently by someone without cages and kind enough to take him outside every day for long walks, staircases and all.

ARCHIVES