Long story short: A dog-friendly cafe, Sun Ray Cafe, has received a notice from the National Environment Agency.

This was after a customer's dog bit another customer's dog while in their premises and the matter was reported to the authorities instead of being resolved amicably among all the parties involved.

This has resulted in the Serangoon Gardens cafe having to ensure that all dogs brought into the eatery in the future are leashed.

Failing to do so will result in four demerit points as part of enforcement efforts and spot checks carried out by NEA in the aftermath of the complaint.

To be fair, the rule that all dogs must be leashed at all times can be found in the application form for a pet cafe license:

Annex A

(i) All pets are to be properly restrained at all times. Dogs are to be leashed at all times.

However, responses to Sun Ray Cafe's post have been emphatically sympathetic. This is so as the understanding among pet owners, especially dog owners, is that a pet-friendly cafe is where the animals are able to roam freely unrestrained.

Moreover, according to Sun Ray Cafe's Facebook post, only two similar incidents like this have occurred in the six-year history of the cafe.

This is the post in full:

It started as a fight between two dogs, both unleashed. Instead of settling amongst themselves, one party decided to complain to the authorities that his dog was bitten by another dog in our cafe.

In our 6 years of operation, there were only 3 such cases, including this one. Previous cases were closed simply with medical reimbursements.

Sorry guys, please leash all your dogs in future. Else we will have to ask you to leave.

The authorities will be inspecting other pet friendly cafes. So in effect, pets at all pet friendly cafes in Singapore must all be leashed now.

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Top photos via Sun Ray Cafe

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