Dog Eat Dog

This is a disturbing post simply because it's more than just an idiom. This is an actual event happening in a small fishing village in Malaysia just as I write this post. The idiom "Dog eat dog world" signifies a world in which people fight for themselves only and will hurt other people. It means that you must first watch out for your own interests, because other people will be watching out for theirs.

The story on the plight of a group of 300+ stray dogs in Pulau Ketam that were shipped to another uninhabited island without food or fresh water source first broke earlier this week by Malaysia Central. The villagers of this small fishing village claimed that the stray dogs were becoming a problem - defeceating everywhere and even attacking children. Their solution was to capture these dogs and ship them to a nearby uninhabited mangrove island, left to die because there are no sources of food or fresh water.

The main press, including the Star newspaper later picked up this story. See "Plight of the swamp dogs", "Rescue Group Swings into action", and "Dog runs deeper into the island on seeing rescuers". Animal activist Sabrina Yeap who went to the island to rescue the dogs said that some of the dogs have died of starvation while others drowned in their attempt to swim back to Pulau Ketam. It was also reported that the surviving dogs had resorted to eating the carcasses of their dead counterparts. I guess these dogs did what they needed do to survive.

It is a sad day indeed to see how cruel humans can be.