SEREMBAN: As animal lovers howled with outrage over the killing of 13 dogs by the municipal council at a house here, questions arose as to whether the dogs were indeed a nuisance.

The Seremban Municipal Council (MPS) maintains that exasperated neighbors complained about the dogs, but a neighbor said they had got used to the dogs and no one complained.

And the owner of the dogs, Eng Her Sun, grieved over his lost "children" at his Taman Rasah Jaya terrace house yesterday.

Eng said: "My house became a killing field. There was blood everywhere. I not only lost my dogs but I also had to spend hours cleaning the blood. This is so inhumane. Those dogs were like my children."  Eng plans to write to the Prime Minister to complain about the manner in which Seremban Municipal Council (MPS) officers entered his house and killed 13 of his 26 dogs on Thursday.

A team of enforcement officers from the MPS entered Eng’s house, and shot 13 of his dogs.

Eng, who lived with his sister and 26 dogs, managed to rescue nine of them. The other four were unhurt because they hid under the cupboard during the shooting.

The odd-job worker, who currently has four dogs staying with him, said he took the other nine to his rented house in Kuala Sawah, near Mambau, located about two km from Taman Rasah Jaya.

"When the authorities told me to keep my dogs elsewhere, I rented a wooden house for RM140 a month. For six months, I lived with three or four dogs at the terrace house. The others were left in Kuala Sawah.

"However, about three weeks ago, a neighbor there told me that MPS officers had been watching the house, and had even threatened to shoot them.

"That was why I brought them to stay with me. I never expected it to end this way," said a distraught Eng.

The MPS, however, had another story. Council president Abdul Halim Abdul Latif said the officers had been watching the house in Kuala Sawah, and found it to be empty.

"Eng didn’t leave the dogs at the wooden house. All 26 of them were staying with him and his sister at the terrace house," he said.

He added that the council had received numerous complaints about Eng and his dogs over the years.

"All we want is for him to keep his dogs elsewhere and to be more considerate towards his neighbors. They can’t tolerate the bad smell and incessant barking anymore," he said.

Commenting on the killing, Abdul Halim said the officers had no choice but to shoot the dogs because they (the officers) were being attacked.

"Eng wouldn’t co-operate, so we had to break into the house. When the dogs realized our presence, they began attacking us. We initially wanted to tranquillize the dogs, but had to resort to shooting them," he said.

The story changed again where Eng’s neighbors were concerned.

Neighbor Yusnita Mohd Yusof, 35, said none of her neighbors had complained about the dogs.

"The dogs never made much noise, and usually barked when someone was standing outside the house or provoked," she said.

Yusnita, who has been living here for five years, said children sometimes threw firecrackers at the dogs during festive occasions just to see how the dogs reacted.

"Even when the owner took the dogs out for walks, he would clean after them," she said.

Meanwhile, Sherrina Krishnan of Independent Pet Rescuers said the dogs should not have been killed so mercilessly, especially not in the home of its owner.

"Were they shot because they were dogs? What if the neighbours complained about a man with many cats? Would the authorities storm into the house and kill the cats too?

"We will be visiting Eng on Sunday. We also want to take him to a ‘safe place’ where he can live with his dogs without fear," said Sherrina, who rescues abandoned cats and dogs and helps find proper homes for them.

Malaysian Animal Welfare Foundation education officer Sabrina Yeap said there were plans to take Eng and his dogs to the Animal Paradise farm in Pekan Nanas, Johor soon. The farm is a haven for more than 1,000 animals.