November 4, 2008Comments are closed.shelter procedure
Victoria’s animal welfare organisations top the states in hard-line campaigning for increasingly powerful animal welfare legislation, under the guise of keeping pets safe from ‘irresponsible owners’. So when asked why they are killing tens of thousands of pets annually, they always have plenty of reasons on hand to blame ‘an irresponsible public’.
In 2001, the reason for the killing was ‘irresponsible owners’ dumping their untrained pets;
Victorians are among the world’s worst pet dumpers with almost 30,000 animals being put down each year. And a hard core of ‘serial dumpers’ is throwing its animals on the streets year after year, according to animal welfare campaigner Dr Graeme Smith.
More than 22,000 cats and 7000 dogs are destroyed at Melbourne’s three biggest animal shelters every year and about 750,000 pets were dumped in Victoria in the last 10 years.
Dr Smith, managing director of the Lost Dogs’ Home and Cat Shelter in North Melbourne, said it was sickening that some people treated their animals like disposable toys that they could turn on and off. He said winter was the worst time for the dumping of dogs when people who had bought on impulse grew tired of their untrained, adolescent pet bringing mud into the house or becoming too boisterous.
Pet dumping our shame – The Sunday Herald, 17 June 2001
In 2002, the reason for the killing was ‘irresponsible owners’ not registering their pets;
The Lost Dogs’ Home is now doorknocking all homes in select streets in the municipalities of Melbourne, Hobsons Bay and Greater Bendigo. Frankston and Darebin residents face blitzes next month.
Mr Shelton said owners were putting the lives of their pets in jeopardy for the sake of fees of only $22 for most dogs and $14 for most cats.
About 70 per cent of stray animals taken to the council pound are not reclaimed and four in five are destroyed, he said.
Councils collar pet problems – The Herald Sun, 14 June 2002
By 2006, the reason for the killing was ‘irresponsible owners’ not desexing their pets;
The pressure is on Victorian councils to impose mandatory desexing of dogs and cats to reduce the tens of thousands being destroyed each year. The state’s biggest animal welfare organisations The Lost Dogs Home and RSPCA killed almost 9000 unwanted dogs and 19,000 cats last financial year. This is equivalent to 75 a day. The organisations are lobbying councils to introduce new powers forcing pet owners to desex their dogs and cats.
Make desexing a must – Melton Moorabool Leader, 30 May 2006
And in 2008, it’s the failing economy and rental crisis that’s got ‘irresponsible owners’ surrendering their animals.
RSPCA shelters across Victoria received 17,870 cats in the past financial year. Two-thirds had to be put down. The number of cats euthanised at the Burwood East shelter alone increased by more than 80 per cent.
“The current situation is appalling, unethical and unacceptable and the community needs to come to the party and help solve this problem,” Ms Mercurio said.
Economic hard times and stiff competition for rental properties had led to more pets being dumped, Ms Mercurio said.
Cats crisis ‘sickening’ – The Age, September 26, 2008
So to force people be ‘responsible pet owners’ these groups lobby the government for laws which make people register and microchip. They push for laws to make owners desex. And to save lives when so many pets are flooding shelters, you’d think they’d also be doing everything they could to help people become reunited with their animals.
According to the Lost Dogs Home news report on Channel 10, thanks to all these lovely new laws, it’s now council fees that are keeping owners from collecting their pets;
[youtube=http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=jtkdwuf5d18]
Reporter: There’s currently 39 dogs looking for a new home – more than 10 times the average. Staff are blaming pressure on family budgets for the increase, for some it’s just too expensive to collect their precious pooch.
Sue Conroy: If the dog’s going to cost them fines for being out with the council, or microchipping fees and desexing fees, then maybe they’ll opt not to take the dog back home again.
So while rescue groups have been blaming an ‘irresponsible public’ for high impound and low reclaim rates, at the same time they have been killing pets who have homes and families.
In an effort to ‘punish irresponsible owners’ shelters are killing pets whose owners have made an error, had their pet escape and been collected by one of these ‘refuges’ and who now can’t afford to pay the very same fines championed by rescue groups as a way to reduce the killing.
How can groups kill pets who have families, yet still purport they exist to save lives? How can they claim to be leading the way on animal care and compassion, taking donations from a pet-loving public to shelter and protect animals, while they busy themselves killing the pets of disadvantaged and struggling families?
But undeterred these groups continue, ignoring the contradiction and championing even more draconian laws, greater penalties and putting even more pets in danger of being seized and killed should their owners be in violation or unable to pay. And as people don’t get their new pet from those people who killed their old pet (or their neighbour’s, or their friend’s pet) they cement the divide between themselves and the public and move even further away from being the number 1 source of pets for adopters.
Legislation is often thought of as a quick solution to the high rate of shelter killing. “If only we had a law,” the argument goes, “all the bad, irresponsible people would have to take care of their pets properly, and shelters wouldn’t have to kill so many animals.” If that were true, given the proliferation of punitive mandates nationwide, there should be many No Kill communities. There is not because experience has proven that legislation is far from a cure-all. In fact it often has the opposite effect.
We as a nation of pet lovers need to ask; if the pets are being surrendered because of a lack of training, being unregistered, being undesexed or any of the other ‘irresponsible’ reasons used by these groups to inspire sympathy in the pet-loving community, and not because they’re vicious or sick… why are they be being killed at all? Where is the accountability to these groups for their own performance in their mission “to save the lives of pets”? And should we be supporting groups with millions of dollars in donations annually, who are failing in that mission?
Until they can prove to be more than efficient killing machines, we need to halt the march of more laws, more fines and more powers for them to impound animals. Especially when those laws fail to return pets home and instead sees them killed.
