Unless you're a card-carrying Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) activist, you would be in agreement with Fahri Azzat ('Pet owners must be responsible too') who wrote to ask dissenters to please place consideration to your fellow man first, before you start with your pet dog.

History has been on Fahri's side. In the short geological time span that man has been ascendent, he has managed to wipe out innumerable specie of fauna from off the face of this planet. Blame over the extinction of animals can be laid squarely at man's door - the homo sapien has always looked out for only he and himself.

But forget the bigger picture. Let's examine Fahri's avowal of support for would-be dog owners to obtain their neighbours' consent before acquiring dog licences. Here again, the letter writer is in the winning camp! Lucky chap.

His rationale is reasonable: A man's home is his castle; can't one have some peace and quiet around?

If you have the good fortune to be Fahri's neighbour, reconsider having a dog because, sooner or later, the local councils could decide to revive the so-called 'guidelines' and you're not likely to get his consent for a pet in your home. Then what will you do with Rover, now aged three or four?

The authorities are intent on making us answerable to our neighbours by law. The question is: which moral code is to be the criteria? Get our neighbours written consent for a licence to hold parties? Weddings? Subang Jaya was a test case and it was only due to public outcry that the idea has been put on the backburnerfor the time being.

Wouldn't it be Utopia if we were able to legislate for our neighbourhood to be made-over in our own image? Have the rules and regulations enacted solely to suit our purposes and for our ease?

Allow me repeat portions of Fahri's letter but generally just replacing the word 'dogs' with 'children':

"I am in favour that couples must obtain their neighbours' written consent before they are allowed to have children. Why then might you ask do I condone this rule?

"Simply because I live next door to a few houses that keeps not only one but several babies. And how these babies bawl. Not just in the day mind you. Sometimes they cry all night until the wee hours of the morning. Because our houses are close and the quality of the bawling is sharp and cutting, the noise cuts through my bedroom walls, my double-layered curtains and tears into my ears.

"Occasionally, I'm shocked awake early in the morning by the eerie howling of my neighbours babies. Needless to say, I have great trouble sleeping and staying asleep. Amazingly enough, the procreators of these babies have no problems because neighbours are to place consideration first for the families who are helping Malaysia achieve her population target of 70 million by the year 2020."

Barring China with her one-child policy and Singapore (in the past) that required couples to stop at two, waiting for legislation to curb the number of children allowed your neighbour is like hoping we will one day be blessed with a Bersih, Cekap, Amanah (Clean, Efficient, Trustworthy) federal government.

But let me get to my counter point. First though, I concede I don't dispute Fahri's contention that "there is great responsibility in keeping pets" and some dog owners don't give a woof about the welfare of their animals. Sad but true.

Ditto in keeping children. If we could screen bad parents before they breed like rabbits, we'd have fewer cases of neglect, child abuse and incestuous rape.

But why blame dogs only for the loud noises that grate on our ears? Has anyone heard cats caterwaul to the maximum capacity of their little lungs? It makes your hair stand on end.

Yes, I certainly wish that everyone would be mindful of the noise pollution they cause and to spare a thought for their neighbours.

But I will now say something that will alienate readers, garner me hate mail and which will not see print in the pathetic mainstream media. Where I live, there are five mosques in the immediate vicinity which blast the subuh prayers from loudspeakers before the crack of dawn.

And yes, Fahri, I'm going to put 'an Islamic spin' on this. Where I to live, a predominantly Chinese or Indian neighbourhood, there is no way that five temples would have been permitted to be built all so close together and to blast prayer calls over loudspeakers. The mainstream community would be up in arms.

There can't be any denying that the will of the mainstream prevails. That's why the other races are categorised as 'bukan-Melayu' and 'bukan-Islam' in all official documents. If it were otherwise, a Malay-Muslim person would be classified as 'non-Chinese' or 'non-Hindu'.

Is the fact that dogs are not allowed in public parks - on pain of a RM2,000 fine or a year's jail - and that it's becoming more and more difficult to keep one without state intrusion, reflective of the general Islamisation process in the country? I say it is.

Ban dogs altogether? Why not? Look at the number of things already on the ban list in Kelantan and Terengganu.