It’s not well known, but many council pounds close their doors from Christmas Eve, through to New Years Day. During these eight days staff take holidays, leaving no one to process impounded animals for adoption.
So the week before Christmas becomes not so jolly for the pets. Pound staff will have a ‘clean out’ in the days before the holidays, and all unclaimed dogs and cats remaining in the pound will be culled – until there are none. These pets aren’t ‘faulty’, they’re not ‘unwanted’ or ‘unadoptable’ – they’ve simply had the misfortune to have been impounded at the wrong time of year.
If you believe killing is an unacceptable way for councils to manage companion animals, help change harmful policies like Christmas culls.
– Contact your local council to find out their christmas opening hours and whether they are operating extended adoption hours, or a promotion in the days leading up to the holidays.
– Ask them who will be staffing the pound in the Christmas break, whether there is reclaims and adoptions, or just a skeleton staff of cleaners. Or whether the pound is closed entirely.
– Help PetRescue work to make all pounds safe and sound.
Please don’t let yet another year pass with these pets being simply another end-of-year statistic. Reject the notion that just because it’s Christmas, the lives of these pet have no value.
Killing should be for compassion, for necessity, rather than for Christmas or convenience.
This is unacceptable – either staff the pound over Xmas or ask the public to foster over this time – it works. Look at what has occurred in other pounds. They are empty. There are people who would help if they knew what was going on and what was needed
Totally unacceptable. Killing of animals at any time, Fostering all those dogs and cats is the obvious thing to do. Advertise for volunteers to feed them, walk them and clean their cages. Or let people who want to adopt more than 2 dogs or cats, let them do it, without having to have special permission. This would decrease immediately the amount of pets ever being received by pounds.