The ultimate failure: when pets with owners are killed by pounds

A council’s animal management department can be a huge asset to its community; working to keep its public safe, offering a service that protects people and their animals and leading the way in compassion. Or it can work against its public, seeing them as an enemy that needs to be coerced with more laws, more fines and convoluted bureaucracy.

And sometimes it sits in the grey area between.

But what is certain amongst all pounds and shelters in 2010 is that the public are informed about, comparing and critiquing their local animal organisation’s performance like never before. Online discussion and the community’s feeling that pets are ‘family members’, combined with the realisation that other countries have made huge advancements in sheltering techniques that save the lives of animals, has lead to pet owners questioning the role of modern animal management. If people feel they aren’t getting the best from their local departments, they’re starting to ask why?

When family pets entering the pound system, fail to make it out alive (especially when the reason they’ve lost their lives are the cost of impoundment fees, paperwork mix-ups or short holding times) distraught pet owners are fighting back. And when they do, they’re taking their message to the masses.

• When Michala Herbert discovered her kitten missing just before Christmas, she door knocked her neighbourhood, finding her kitten hand been handed into the RSPCA by a neighbour. Although the family went to claim the cat nearly immediately, the shelter staff suspected ringworm and it was killed on arrival;
  

  A wandering kitten has caused heartache for the Herbert family after the cat was put down after just a few hours at the RSPCA.

  

  Ms Herbert claimed when she arrived at the shelter she was told her kitten, Lucky, had been put down as there were too many kittens at the shelter.

   

• In the same month, a golden retriever cross named ‘Brindle’ entered the Lost Dogs Home Cranbourne pound two days before Christmas.
  

  

  

  Ms Bierman received a call from the pound telling her Brindle was there, but despite offering to collect her straight away she was told she couldn’t because Brindle was registered in her former partner Paul Lindley’s name.

  The next day, when Mr Lindley went with their children to collect Brindle they were turned away because her microchip details were in Ms Bierman’s name.

  Despite being just 30 minutes from closing for the Christmas holiday period, the pound refused to give the children their dog.
  …..
  After repeated phone calls between Ms Bierman, the pound and animal welfare officers at Frankston Council, Ms Bierman was told on New Year’s Eve that Mr Lindley could collect Brindle.

  Less than 10 minutes later she received another call from the council to tell her Brindle was dead.

   

• Another miserable Christmas for a family in Ipswich, where the pound killed a dog that had been a family Christmas present, ordered from a purebred breeder interstate.The family had only had ‘Josephine’ a few days over the holiday break, before she escaped. The family reported the loss to the RSPCA, but with limited knowledge of the pound system, mistakenly believed they would be contacted if their dog was found. They weren’t and Joesphine was killed after the pound’s three day holding period.
  

  Ipswich City Council Pound did not cross reference with the RSPCA before they put her down otherwise Josephine would have been returned to us. I would have thought the RSPCA would be the first place they would liase with.
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• And in our newest case of an owned pet losing its life, is the story of ‘Biscuit’ – killed by Mount Isa City Council.
  

  Mount Isa Isa City Council pound has killed a dog who escaped from its owners yard during last Wednesday’s thunderstorm, after taking money from its owner for its release.

  The Jack Russell-cross named Biscuit was destroyed despite its owner, Georgie Martin, identifying the dog as hers.

  The council has a policy of putting dogs down if they remain unidentified after three days, but Biscuit was not even given that long.

  Ms Martin found Biscuit in the pound the day after she went missing.

  “She was so happy to see us, but there was nobody there,” she said.
  ….
  “My husband went down there on a Friday and he could see (Jacqueline) in the cage. I rang the pound and asked if I could come get her tomorrow. But because it was Friday, they said I’d have to come get her on Monday,” Jacqueline’s owner said.

  “I went in to get her on Monday and she wasn’t there.”

  The experience of Jacqueline’s family did not go unnoticed, with the story leading to other owners coming forward to sharing their experiences of pets being held to ransom.

While each of these stories are littered with failures – the result is the same. Pets with owners who loved them are dead. It’s worth noting all of these cases have happened in just three months.

Our pets deserve better.

All avenues must be exhausted to keep pets from becoming lost, and when they are, every effort made to reunite them with their families. Whether it’s keeping pets longer, making it easy for people to register their pets through online systems, lost pet databases or promotions highlighting the value of a collar and tag, these stories of heartbreak should serve to re-enforce the notion that impounded pets are nearly always lost family members. Killing a pet who has an owner should be regarded as the ultimate failure of an animal management system, and when it happens pet lovers everywhere have the right to question why.

With stories are being brought into the public domain for discussion, killing is no longer happening behind closed doors. And this new wave of people questioning why the system fails is vital to continuing to improve outcomes for shelter pets.