A regional scheme provided pensioners and low-income earners with assistance to get their animals desexed. Guess what happened next?
No really. Guess what happened.
A dramatic decline in the number of animals being impounded.
Here’s the article because it’s just so good:
In conjunction with the Walgett Veterinary Clinic and the Walgett Shire Council, the RSPCA has been running the Community Animal Welfare Scheme (CAWS) in Lightning Ridge for the fifth year in a row this week.
Dr Ann-Margret Withers from the RSCPA said the scheme provided pensioners and low-income earners with assistance to get their animals vaccinated and desexed in an effort to control overpopulation in regional areas, where impounding numbers are essentially the same as the number of animals euthanased.
The scheme also involves an educational program, which will be run at the Lightning Ridge Central School in October, to foster long-term attitudinal changes to responsible pet ownership in the community.
Dr Withers and local ranger Andy Bostock both agreed there had been a dramatic decline in the number of animals being impounded since the scheme had begun.
Local veterinarian Dr Enid Coupé said she had also seen a decline in the number of incidences of Parvovirus as a result of the scheme; however, she admitted there was still a long way to go.
More information about the CAWS program can be found here:
Veterinary services are provided at subsidised rates to pensioners and low income earners. These include permanent surgical desexing and health checks involving vaccination and microchipping. Local veterinary clinics are utilised as much as possible to reduce costs and ensure the programs are sustainable. More importantly, contact with local vets helps to generate relationships between clients and their local vets and promote a culture of desexing and responsible animal ownership. The programs are run in regions where veterinary capacity is available as well as regions where veterinary capacity is scarce. The animals targeted are those that would normally not be desexed due to cost.
Next time you hear some extrodinarily rich animal welfare group bleating on about how ‘it has to kill pets’ because the government won’t introduce compulsory desexing/ban puppy farms/licence owners… know that there are other organisations that are reducing pet killing by simply helping their community.
