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Monday, November 23, 2009

Westerners care for animals, not pets?

Our most recent article is a piece about pets in Qatar.

In it Fiona Murray questions Qataris about why dogs - with the exception of Salukis - are considered dirty in Qatar, and takes a trip to the Qatar Animal Welfare Society, recently devestated by fire.

The idea for the article was sparked off by an conversation I had with a Qatar Sheikh I met in the falcon souq.

He was sitting there, a hooded bird perched on a thick glove.

He was a friendly gentleman, but got quite angry over the issue of animal rights, especially where it concerned hunting.

"You Westerners care more about animals than people," he complained. "When there are people starving to death all over the world, why are you fussing about a few animals?"

Like many people in Qatar, he can not understand Westerners' fuss over animals.

But does he have a point? Are we more concerned about animals than people?

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