January 19, 2010Comments are closed.adoptions, customer service, No Kill, shelter procedure
Blacktown pound’s god-awful ‘bidding’ system is under fire from their local community.
Bidding madness riles locals at Blacktown Pound
More animals are killed at Blacktown Animal Holding Facility than anywhere else in the state, yet it continues to use an archaic system where people have to bid to rescue a homeless pet.
The system allows the council to make money but puts some popular animals usually the cute puppies beyond the reach of an average family.
…Early this month, a little female terrier at the pound grabbed so much attention she was bid for by a dozen people and eventually sold for $400.
The Castle family, who missed out on the dog despite entering a bid of $150, 2 times the minimum sale price of $60, are outraged, saying 11 other dogs could have been rescued.
Instead, 11 families went home empty-handed.
…..A Blacktown Council spokeswoman said the bidding system was introduced to discourage semi-professional and backyard breeders who would go to the pound every morning and buy the desirable animals.
She said animals within the pound’s seven-to-14-day holding period could be bid for.
“When the animal is due out, the highest tender is contacted and offered the animal,” she said.
Cr Russ Dickens, a Blacktown vet, said the ‘worthless’ system should be eliminated.
He introduced a no-kill policy late last year and said removing the tender process would help save animals on death row.
In 2008, 1419 dogs and 3146 cats were put down at the council facility.
“We don’t want to make money out of them,” Cr Dickens said. “We want to get them out of there and into a positive environment.”
Now I’m not going to give Blacktown too much of a roasting here, because I genuinely believe there is change underway at their pound. But if they’re serious about their pledge to become No Kill, then they absolutely have to make overhauling their processes a priority.
Below is an outline of the programs needed in any community to take it toward a No Kill future.
A huge thanks to Fred of One Bark at a Time for putting a list together for his community, that allows us to all to build one for our own.
With a full pound and a high euthanasia rate, the present system of releasing undesexed animals to the public must be stopped.
– Modern adopters expect to pay an adoption fee that includes desexing, so develop variable or set adoption fees which includes the cost of vet work.
– Reach out to local vets to desex adult pets before adoption.
– Reach out to rescue groups, allowing them to use their own veterinarian to do the surgeries.
– Provide a voucher to all kitten/puppy adopters so they can get their pet desexed free when their pet reaches 6 months of age.
– Follow up with people who have adopted a kitten/puppy to ensure the animal is desexed at six months of age.
– Partner with local councils to lobby support from the community to help open a low cost desexing clinic at Blacktown.
– Invest all revenue from pet registrations back into animal care and outreach.
– Target vulnerable sections of the community with outreach pet desexing programs
– Identify areas where people have pet behavioural problems. Work to increase the numbers of single use dog off leash areas in those area. Engage local behavioural trainers and vets to increase puppy pre-school opportunities.
– Implement the policy that lost pet who are wearing ID or who have a microchip, are taken straight home by council officials, to decrease the impounded shelter population. (If there is a problem with the percentage of pets registered, see the Calgary model, offering service in return for compliance).
– Work with and assist local cat colony carers to offer an alternative to impoundment to unrehomable cats.
Pre–adoption
– Give pets a thorough health and behavioural assessment before they are put in the adoption program.
– Any health issues should be identified and a treatment plan put into place to get the animal healthy and adoptable.
– Any behavioural issues (food aggression/dog aggression) should be identified and a treatment plan put into place to get the animal healthy and adoptable.
– A basic obedience program should be implemented for every dog admitted, using trained volunteers under the direction of a behavioural trainer.
– A puppy school should be offered for puppy socialisation and basic training.
– A socialisation program should be implemented for all animals admitted.
– Ensure pets available for adoption should be promptly listed in all available media; local newspapers, PetRescue and on the Blacktown Council website.
Adoptions
– Implement clear, concise, and consistent adoption protocols (a screening process)
– Adoption staff should have access to animal information (behaviour, health) so that match can be made between potential adopters and animals.
– Partner with local pet supplies stores to adopt out pets from their stores, or promote animal adoption in store.
– Expand partnerships with reputable local rescue groups to allow them to take animals and adopt them out.
– Promote open days at the shelter in conjunction with special times of the year (valentines day, christmas etc) and join existing local pet events to showcase animals.
– Develop a committee that will be in charge of creating an adoption strategy (specific to each animal) for animals that have been overlooked for adoption for an extended period.
– Implement a ‘secret shopper’ style program to audit staff behaviour towards potential adopters to identify any problems with customer service. Reward staff who offer a great adopter experience.
Adoption After-Care
– Help adopters access local pet care information; an adoption kit provided to all adopters with information on how to help their new pet adjust to their new home, introducing a new pet to an existing pet, where to get help with behavioural issues, exercise, how to find a vet, grooming, etc.
– Create a hotline for people to call if they run into issues with their new pet. The shelters involvement with an animal shouldn’t stop once the animal has left the building. Many return adoptions are related to behavioural issues and a system needs to be put into place to help adopters with the issues that lead to return adoptions.
– Partner up with dog trainers, grooming facilities, and veterinary clinics. These businesses may be willing to donate services or offer a discount to Blacktown animals in exchange for free advertising or promotion opportunities.
– Start a low cost basic obedience program in conjunction with local behavioural trainers. This will foster good relationships with members of the community, prevent surrenders due to minor behavioural issues, and provide revenue for the shelter. These basic training classes should be free for all adopted dogs.
– Expand and develop relationships with reputable rescue organisations.
– Contact rescues as soon as a potential candidate for transfer is identified.
– Create a links page on the Blacktown website profiling these rescues groups.
– Assist rescues with low-cost veterinary care and access to free desexing.
– Encourage the community to donate to local rescue groups.
– Organize all-in-rescue Adoptathons.
– Identify shelters willing to work to with Blacktown in both regional and metropolitan areas.
– Create an animal trading program. If animals that are best suited to live in a rural environment, send those animals to a partner shelter in a rural environment in exchange for animals that would be well suited for an urban environment.
– Offer to help relieve overcrowding in other shelters when resources are available.
– Develop a positive working relationship between major shelters in the state.
– Create an active and continuous foster family recruitment strategy. Call for foster carers on the Blacktown Council website.
– Give these foster carers access to a behavioural training program and ongoing support.
– Allow foster parents to adopt their foster animals.
– Create an active and continuous volunteer recruitment strategy. Call for volunteers on the Blacktown Council website.
– Create a list of every specific role a volunteer can play at Blacktown, from laundry to cat grooming, to fundraising. Post this list on the website (with the details of each role) so that the public is aware of how their skills and interests can be used to help the animals.
– Work to match potential volunteers with areas of the shelter that match their interests.
– Create a volunteer training program for every aspect of the shelter; eg. Volunteers who work with animals should be given an animal behaviour course.
– Recruit volunteers who can help with specific jobs. Graphic designers, photographers, event planners, professional writers, etc can offer their specific skills to improve the website, information packages, plan fundraisers, etc. Create a list of these people and their skills so that the volunteer coordinators know who to call when specific jobs need to be done at the shelter.
– Create a section of the website dedicated to keeping the public up to date on changes being made to improve policies and procedures in the shelter.
– Revamp the adoption aspect of the website. There should be images of the animals available for adoption, and good descriptions of them (can be done by volunteers).
– Create a section of the website dedicated to the distribution of information on how to deal with behavioural issues, the exercise needs of animals, the nutritional needs of animals, how to socialise animals, how to pet-proof your home, animal safety, the importance of veterinary care, etc.
– Create a listing of local animal rescue organisations.
– Create a volunteer section of the website with a list of ways volunteers can get involved.
– Use social media; a blog or a facebook page to promote animals at Blacktown. Allow the community to take control of promoting available animals themselves.
– Once a month do a write up on a staff member so that the public can get to know the people that work at the shelter. Do the same for a volunteer each month to encourage participation.
– Keep the public up to date on new programs and existing programs.
Work with the community to build a facility for animals with behavioural issues that need more work than can be provided at the pound. The goal of this facility would be to rehabilitate animals that are unsuitable for adoption. Animals would stay at this facility until their behaviour has been modified and they can be safely put into the adoption program.
In the case of animals where the behaviour cannot be modified enough for public adoption, the new facility would become an animal sanctuary for these “unadoptable” animals where they can live for the rest of their lives.
I would like to sincerely give my full regards to the writer of this article as you have completely covered everything I have always said about Blacktown Pound. I am a big believer in the No Kill Policy and thoroughly encourage people to adopt rescue pets though I have long said to others that Blacktown Pound seriously needs to reconsider the way they rehome animals. Many people I know have been turned off by the bidding system as they don’t want to wait a week to find out if they “win” the dog they wanted and end up going elsewhere.
I adopted one of my dogs from Blacktown pound a 6 month old PointerX he cost us around $300 he was not desexed and had obviously not had a health check as when we took him home he had kennel cough (luckily our other dog was fully vaccinated as he was 15 at the time). This would turn anyone off adopting from the pound again.
The sadest thing I saw was a family who had adopted a beautiful LabradorX only to find out a week after adopting, vaccinating anddesexing him he had Parvo, the family spent over $1000 on him only for him to die a few days later, they then had him cremated aswell. I was one of the nurses at this clinic at the time and it was so sad, considering how contagious it is I can only assume other dogs in the facility caught it aswell.
Blacktown surely must understand the amount of animal lovers looking for any type of work in the industry including volunteer work and this would provide them with enough support to keep these dogs in fantastic condition for their new family to be.