PetRescue – 1% of Australian pounds currently use the power of PetRescue to rehome their rescue pets – and Gosford Dog Paws is a shining star showcasing how it should (and can) be done everywhere. #safesoundpounds
Check out the awesome work they do here
Adopt Skye via Gosford Dog Paws
The RSPCA Queensland has done an adoption ad – and it’s pretty good!
Absurdly, it’s taken a rogue state to realise adoptions are a something the RSPCA should be investing in. National Head Office – where are you? Why isn’t this playing on every channel in every state in the lead up to xmas?
Also in Queensland, earlier this month the RSPCA QLD asked its community for help as it struggled with numbers;
The RSPCA Townsville Animal Care Centre is overflowing with animals and is urgently seeking people interested in adopting or fostering animals.
Townsville Animal Care Centre Manager Anja Letz said there were currently 354 cats, kittens, dogs and puppies available for adoption.
“We’re at double our ideal capacity. Some animals have been surrendered to us, but most are simply strays that sadly haven’t been reclaimed,” Ms Letz said.
News yesterday, that the AWL QLD has stepped in to help out.
… “The group that had been taking their pound animals for potential rehoming had suddenly stopped accepting them and the pound had a large number of animals whose impound time was up and these animals would be facing euthanasia the very next day.”…
Firstly, it is great that Toowoomba Pound asked for help when the RSPCA QLD got full – and it’s also wonderful that the AWLQ has stepped up and helped them.
However this situation highlights a problem with pounds which needs to stop being ‘enabled’ by willing volunteers;
The Toowoomba City website states:
“If an animal is not claimed… council will endeavour to rehouse the animal with an approved Welfare Agency. If the animal is not suitable for rehousing it may be euthanised.”…
The animals who had their lives threatened here, weren’t as claimed ‘unsuitable for rehousing’, but simply hadn’t had homes found for them. All the while pounds rely on charities to save pets, pet’s lives are unnecessarily at risk. Pounds should be encouraged to work with rescue. But rescue release should be an enhancement to their own in-house adoption programs – not a replacement for it.
Rehoming pets should be a core function of every council pound. When pounds are failing to work to find homes for the pets they are taking in, they are 100% failing to do their job.
The RSPCA Tasmania has recorded an annual loss of more than $100,000 and will not be in the black for at least 18 month, according to General Manager Peter West.
Setting a timeframe for returning the organisation to profit, Mr West said: “18 months, I guess, would be a fair, indicative sort of time period,” he said.
Mr West took over running the RSPCA TAS after a parliamentary inquiry called for it to restructure describing its management processes as ‘dysfunctional’. Prior to his employment, the organisation had seen four CEOs (since 2008), with two “dismissed for misconduct”.
Mr West seems to be reviewing the roles of the RSPCA is an extremely positive way requiring that local councils and the State Government run their own pound and animal management departments, rather than simply pass these roles on to the RSPCA. Hopefully, that will mean the organisation can reclaim it’s role as a protector of animals, rather than an extension of the government’s ‘dog catchers’.
The RSPCA ACT continues to struggle with staffing and finances since the ousting of its CEO Michael Linke last year. The organisation had launched investigations after nine staff made written complaints to the governing council in September about issues including underpayment, staff welfare and management style under Linke’s leadership.
The RSPCA ACT appointed Tammy Ven Dange, a former US Air Force lieutenant and NASA IT professional as its new chief executive in February. However, since starting the organisation has lost even more experienced staff;
The RSPCA in Canberra has slashed management positions and cut wage costs by one-third in a restructure designed to ensure its viability after a heavy deficit in the last financial year.
While at least one recently departed manager has questioned the exodus of experienced staff, RSPCA ACT chief executive Tammy Ven Dange said the changes were necessary and had left a more flexible workplace.
“We’ve cut costs by really taking out a whole lot of management – it was ridiculous how top-heavy it was,” she said.
…Ms Ven Dange said she had cut wage costs by $20,000 a fortnight.
Staff numbers were cut down to 47, from 57 a year before, with the current staff levels lower still as vacancies wait to be filled.
This week, the organisation appealed to the government for support;
The RSPCA in Canberra is continuing to lose money with financial documents showing the charity had losses of more than $550,000 last financial year.
The animal welfare organisation said it had dramatically increased kitten and dog adoptions, and cut costs as much as it can.
But RSPCA ACT chief executive Tammy Ven Dange has asked the ACT Government for more money, saying further cuts would harm animal welfare.
“People don’t realise how expensive it really is to do our work,” she said.
“If you think about a dog which has been with us for six months, we’ve had to do all sorts of medical stuff and it costs us $5,000 to $6,000 for it.
“[But] we might adopt it out for $295.”
Ms Ven Dange said around 40 per cent of their budget came from fundraising.
“Our commercial operations, which include adoptions, our vet clinic, our boarding facility for cats, retail, makes up about 45 per cent of our budget,” she said.
“Then we have our ACT Government grant which is about 15 per cent of our budget.
…..Ms Ven Dange said the organisation had already made changes to its structure to help ease financial pressure on services.
“We’re the only RSPCA in the country who looks after stray dogs without a pound contract and we look after about 1,000 of them a year,” she said.
“I’ve had to take out a layer of management to reduce costs, mostly administration not from frontline services.
“It hasn’t hurt the animals but it sure hasn’t been healthy for us financially.”
The Pound Reform Alliance Australia has made a comment on the Victorian State Elections;
Every vote can have an impact on the stance the Victorian government takes on animal welfare for the next four years. Please use your vote to make a difference.
In relation to pound reform, the Animal Justice Party seem to be leading the way with their aim of “achieving no kill status for all pounds and shelters within five years. Modelled on the work of the No Kill Advocacy Center (US).”
The Greens also have a number of policies re companion animals including: “the adoption of unclaimed impounded companion animals, with the development of ‘no kill’ shelters to rehabilitate and re-home such animals.”
The Australian Democrats “support the push for a “No Kill” philosophy and legislation to be introduced for all Pound services that operate within Victoria.”
Residents have called for Campbelltown Animal Care Facility to lower its prices after a newspaper’s appeal last week for rescue groups and the community to rehome animals on death row.
Many readers of the Macarthur Chronical expressed concern that $331 to purchase a dog and $211 for a cat was out of their reach.
Said one reader.
“Maybe instead of putting them down they should offer the animals at a lower price.”
Said another.
“If they lowered the price, especially in situations like this, then surely more would find new homes.”
Council’s response was to tell their community to be more appreciative of their holding-pets-to-ransom-and-killing-them-service;
Campbelltown Mayor Paul Lake said the animals were not overpriced for what buyers were receiving.
“They are all desexed, microchipped and vaccinated.”
And that if the community would simply stop being so awful then the problem would simply magically go away.
If more owners cared for their animals, we could return them or if they were desexed, we wouldn’t have so many running around.
Look – there’s really two options for pounds.
Aggressively market your pets, investing in highly visible promotions to ensure you are always attracting enough families for your adoptable pets; with this high demand level allowing you to charge full price to recoup your ‘costs’.
…OR…
Modestly promote your pets, keep your adoption fees reasonable and throw in the occasional ‘freebie’ promotion to make sure the bare-minimum adopters come through your door. And probably run at a bit of a loss.
Campbelltown Pound however is choosing a third, impossible and catastrophic option.
Spend ZERO time, money or resources on promoting animals. Set adoption fees at a breathtakingly high level and expect every adopter to cover all costs. Complain that people should see these pets as a bargain, then kill any that aren’t placed.
Good management – regardless of industry – is about problem solving. If you have a problem, it is YOUR JOB to solve it. Simply declaring the problem, ‘not a problem’, or blaming your customers for the fact they aren’t choosing to buy from you, is absolutely NOT THE SAME THING.
These pets aren’t dying because they can’t be placed. They are dying because Campbelltown pound management couldn’t innovate their way out of a wet paper bag.
Eucha Animal Rescue has been awarded a grant to go towards lowering Campaspe Shire’s high animal euthanasia rate.
Currently managed by the Lost Dogs Home, the pound kills 20% of dogs and nearly 70% of cats. The group will work with a similar one in Sunraysia to learn about the best ways to decrease killing.
Bypassing tradition and embracing positive change, more and more community rescue groups are being brought to the table, with an emphasis placed on creating safe pounds. Simply wonderful news – congrats to everyone involved!
Brisbane City Council dog officers have been accused of being on a ‘power-trip’ and intimidating women dog-walkers.
“My concern was that this fellow was really aggressive. I didn’t want him following me home,” she said.
“And he told my friend and I that he could follow us all night because he was a marathon runner.”
“He was very frightening and I don’t frighten easily.”
The NSW microchip registry ‘went down’ for a day last week;
The NSW Government microchip registry is currently down and has been since yesterday so if your pet went missing over the weekend or today in NSW you cannot rely on the microchip to get your pet home. Please ring all the vets and pounds in your area as your pet could be there but they cannot ring you. You could save yourself a lot of money by not having to pay holding fees or impounding fees. Please let everyone know.
Microchips are a backup plan. The thing that will save your pet’s life is a compassionate, proactive and well-run local pound.
Nambucca Shire Council is responding as any reasonable Council does to reports of high kill rates – by victimising the whistleblowers and demanding that critical social media posts be removed. In celebration of this behaviour, here are their most recent available stats;
So often, when the community’s pet lovers decide to start saving the pets that their local pound is choosing to kill, they find that the major obstacle isn’t, as we’re often told ‘a lack of homes’.
The major obstacle is nearly always that the pound has no motivation to change.
When a charity pound provider gets paid regardless of the outcome for the pets they process – when a pound manager still gets a regular pay packet even when they fail to preserve the lives of the animals they’re entrusted with – then pounds will fight to maintain the status quo.
This can include personally targeting those individuals speaking out, either through their pets (threatening, seizing or bullying) or financially through the courts. This is extremely traumatic, as someone wanting to save the lives of pets is not expecting that volunteering compassion could ever be deemed a ‘bad’ thing.
The fight against regressive pound policies has never been more important. Our pets – our family members – deserve to have a safe place in their time of need.
I’ve always thought if my kids were in school learning from the RSPCA curriculum of ‘overpopulation’, ‘cat confinement’ and ‘mandatory desexing’, that I would feel conflicted about them receiving an animal education. However, I’m seriously impressed with the stuff from the Australian student education resources from the International Fund for Animal Welfare – IFAW.
From their ‘dogs and cats’ sections;
“When conflicts occur between communities and their companion animals, a sad yet common response, is to kill the animal population. This “solution” can even have government sanction where an official policy of the mass cull of dogs and cats employs such terrible measures as poisoning the animals with strychnine… shooting. Not only are these methods inhumane, they don’t work.”
… and…
“When people are having problems with the cats or dogs in their community they often believe there are too many – an “overpopulation” of animals.
But how many cats and dogs are too many? Every community is different… “Too many” animals really means that cats and dogs are doing things that people don’t want or like. People may be concerned about the spread of disease, bites, or behaviours such as barking, getting into garbage, or weeing and pooing in public places. People may also feel concerned about animals that are clearly suffering from lack of adequate care.
When cats or dogs are unwanted or causing problems for a community, people may think the answer is to simply reduce the number of animals. But the problem is not “too many” animals; it’s how people feel about what the animals are doing. Usually, the best response is to change how people care for the animals.”
According to their project map, this organisation doesn’t seem to be working on any dog and cat projects in Australia. However, with the RSPCA continuing to turn its back on humane management of animals, we’ve never needed compassionate leadership more.
Kitten season is here again! Rescue groups are perpetually at capacity, trying to fix the problems local councils are creating.
We need pounds and shelters to stop allocating their valuable space to cats whom didn’t need ‘rescuing’ and weren’t ‘lost’. The amounts of healthy, well fed, shiny-coated animals being collected and impounded, so that they can sit in the pound and have their lives threatened is crazy.
If these cats were left alone, then pounds would have the capability to process those animals who actually do need help – surrenders and animals who are losing their homes. Stop taking in healthy cats who’ve just taken a walk around the block. Stop taking in healthy strays.
The ‘sheltering’ model for cats is dysfunctional and beyond repair. It is inhumane. Shut it down. Stop doing what isn’t working. Just stop already.
There’s a catchy meme which often gets forwarded by animal welfare people;
“If you don’t like seeing pictures of violence towards animals, you need to help stop the violence, not the pictures.” – Johnny Depp
As more pounds are forced to open their doors to the community, via volunteer programs and rescue group saves – more abuse and neglect of our pets is coming to light.
There is a temptation in some circles to demand people shut up about this cruelty. Don’t rock the boat / don’t talk about what you’ve seen – in case being shamed gives the offending pounds an excuse to close their doors again.
If Johnny were here, he would say just one thing;
“If you don’t like pounds abusing animals, you need to help stop the cruelty, not hide it and protect the abusers.”
It’s heartbreaking that our most vulnerable pets when rescued from neglect, move from a terrible situation… to a terrible situation where their life is in immediate danger.
The frying pan may be hot, but the fire of the high-kill pound by far does most harm.
“What do you feel causes cat overpopulation?”
It doesn’t friggin matter what anyone feels! That’s the absolute reason we’re in this mess.
We ‘felt’ cat owners were to blame, so we created a management system for cats which focuses entirely on punishing cat owners.
Unfortunately, because we were basing our action on our feels, and not good science on cat populations, now we have an overloaded pound system, trying to solve a problem using the wrong solution.
Our ‘feely solution’.
We cannot punish cat owners into making cat ‘overpopulation’ go away -because they’re largely insignificant in the equation of cat populations.
We need to stop ‘feeling’ and look at the facts:
– We have a lot of cats, because cats breed a lot. A LOT.
– We have a basically unchecked breeding population of 8 million cats in Australia (give or take).
– Taking a few hundred thousand of these cats off the street each year and killing them does nothing to address this breeding population. Therefore it is completely unethical to continue to do this.
– ‘Cat owners’ didn’t put these 8 million cats into the environment: the first settlers did. Or maybe even the Portuguese. They were put there to help humankind. And they did (and still do).
– ‘Cat owners’ also don’t sustain this population. If we take one of those ‘1 cat produces a 70 bazillion cats’ equations, whichever way you calculate it, 8 million cats breeding a few times a year, is a lot of animals. It is a totally self-sustaining population.
– Up until the 1950’s (when cat litter was invented) ALL cats lived outdoors. Up until the 1980’s (when desexing became accessible and popular) practically all cats were entire. Meaning ‘cat owners’ as we now know them (indoor owners with desexed pets) are a relatively new invention.
– Rewriting history so we can blame cat owners for a problem that existed at least 100 years before they did, then trying to punish them into solving it… is just stupid.
– – – –
Which brings us to what actually ’causes’ cat overpopulation. Not what we feel, but the actual science.
The easiest way to do this, is to replace the word ‘cat’, with another animal.
“What causes rabbit overpopulation?”
“What causes seagull overpopulation?”
“What causes possum overpopulation?”
“What causes kangaroo overpopulation?”
“What causes lorikeet overpopulation?”
And it’s easy to see the science is much more complex than ‘pet keeping’. It’s a combination of an environmentally compatible animal, human influence, modern farming/living and the luck of mother nature.
Except we’re smart enough to realise a campaign against kangaroo owners as the cause of ‘kangaroo overpopulation’ and the creation of multi-million dollar kangaroo impound/kill facilities for the vomit-inducing waste of money and resources that they would be.
Let’s stop using our soft hearts to try and solve the issue of cat overpopulation – and start using our smart brains. The cats deserve better than what we’re currently offering.
(This post is not excusing irresponsible cat ownership – all cat owners should keep their pets in a responsible way. This post is drawing attention to the idea that 99% of our effort is going into chasing these ‘irresponsible’ owners, and practically none into the gaping maw that is the stray, untame and feral cat population. And that we’ve got that balance totally wrong).
That’s funny – I didn’t even know we had a pensioner overpopulation problem…
I’m only concerned that Echuca Rescue does not desex their animals prior to adopting them out. Being part of the solution should not mean the likelihood of contributing to the problem ????