Earlier in the year I wrote about the stats coming out of NSW, which showed that not only does dog ‘overpopulation’ not exist in the state, but that small changes in council policy could see shelter killing eliminated overnight. However, the figures I was quoting were being collated by independent groups which can sometimes mean they’re discounted as inaccurate by those pushing the ‘overpopulation’ angle.
But the NSW Government has now made public a hefty set of stats which come directly from council pound records; Analysis of Council Data Collection System for Seizures of Cats and Dogs 2005/2006 to 2009/2010, a complete breakdown of all pound intakes in NSW. It gives a in-depth snapshot into both public behaviour and pound performance, which really does confirm what we knew all along – the biggest predictor of whether a dog will die in a pound isn’t the animals breed, behaviour or the owner’s profile, but simply which pound impounds the pet.
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The average percentage of dogs surrendered according to the report is 9.8%. So the idea the pounds are overflowing with callously dumped pets is simply untrue. What’s more, in all apart from the very largest pounds, the number of intakes of surrendered dogs are only a couple of dozen a month; and really not adding much to the shelter load. Programs which help pet owners keep their pets; community dog training schools, behaviour helplines, dog socialisation opportunities and help for owners who rent, all help cement bonds between pets and owner and could be used to reduce abandonment.
So if the dogs aren’t being surrendered, where are they coming from?
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The average percentage of dogs returned to owners according to the report is 43%. It is fair to assume those pounds with lower rates (23%, 28%, 30%) do less to reunite pets with owners, than those who have higher rates of reclaims (50%, 52%, 53%).
But what is *really* interesting is the Sydney North entry; 82% of their dogs went home.
So why do Sydney North dogs do so well?
According to the report, the Sydney North entry is made up of; Hornsby, Hunters Hill, Ku-ring-gai, Lane Cove, Manly, Mosman, North Sydney, Pittwater, Ryde, Warringah and Willoughby
The largest council – Hornsby – sends their pets to the Sydney Dogs and Cats Home, a No Kill shelter in Carlton. The rest of the pets (about 60%) are impounded at local vets (Pittwater Animal Hospital, Collaroy Vets, Warringah Animal Hospital, North Shore Veterinary Hospital and Vetfriends Veterinary Practice), while a handful go to Blacktown.
Why is this significant? Because vets have all the proactive procedures we beg pounds to implement; friendly customer-centric animal loving staff, convenient locations and opening hours and a motivation to reunite pets with owners.
Could it be that the best performing pounds, aren’t pounds at all?
82% is a figure which reflects what we suspected all along; with the right systems in place, the majority of people can be (and want to be!) reunited with their pets. Because their reclaim rate is so high, their kill rate is an inspirational 3% and shows what can be achieved, when those processing pets look beyond killing as a solution.
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Central Coast (made up of Gosford and Wyong) have discovered an efficient way to bring down pound kill rates; do something other than kill. Not only do 53% of dogs go home, more than 12% of them are adopted direct to the public. But what is truly inspiring, is that through relationships with the community 22%, or more than 1 in 5, are released for rehoming by a rescue group.
This has allowed their kill rate to drop to an admirable 8%.
Only once a council puts the excuses for killing aside and start to develop relationships with its community, can the killing end.
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While not a feature of this report, there has been another breakthrough in a NSW pound worth mentioning. Back in January, Camden Council made a commitment to their community’s homeless pets by supporting a year-long trial designed to increase the number of pets adopted from their tendered pound (Renbury). In 2009/10 131 unclaimed cats and 66 unclaimed dogs were destroyed, while only 12 cats and 65 dogs were adopted in the same year.
The approach was two-fold. Four animals should be selected each week to feature in colour weekly ‘Adopt a Pet’ advertisements in the local newspaper (The Camden Advertiser) to improve awareness of adoptable pets. Council would also pay the $24 a day per animal in accommodation cost to hold the pet up to six days over its impound period.
The proposal was raised by deputy mayor Lara Symkowiak as a way to reduce the killing rate of impounded animals.
“The number of impounded animals is certain to increase due to the dramatic growth in population our [council area] will experience,” she said.
“This campaign is a proactive measure by council to raise awareness of Renbury Farm and promote responsible pet ownership.”
“It would be a fantastic outcome if Camden Council could boast that it does not [destroy] any healthy, re-homeable animal.” ~ Cr Lara Symkowiak
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The program started in January this year.
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By March they were seeing results:
“Renbury Farm staff have told me that the weekly advertising is generating more enquiries and people come into the shelter to view an animal they have seen advertised. In some cases, our advertising has drawn people into the shelter, but the person has ended up adopting an animal that has come from Bankstown, Fairfield or Liverpool council. Although the person has adopted an animal, it is not reflected in our statistics as a “Camden” animal was not adopted. This is still a huge win as it is our advertising that has drawn someone in and an animal has been adopted that would normally have been euthanased. So we are getting wins even though not all of these are reflected in our stats.”
Cr Lara Symkowiak
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And last month:
Camden Council’s Adopt a Pet initiative has had its most successful results yet with not one dog at Renbury Farm Animal Shelter being put down in the first week of June.
Deputy mayor Lara Symkowiak said advertising Renbury Farm’s Adopt a Pet program in the Camden-Narellan Advertiser each week was showing positive results.
“To have that week less than six months into the campaign is good,” she said.
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“Good” is obviously a huge understatement by this awesomely proactive councillor. Not one dog is a kill rate of 0%! The result show that simple, compassionate changes by councils lead to huge benefits for pets and amazing successes like this invigorate staff and the community.
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From the stats above we can see that shelter killing can be overcome with the right mix of procedures – so what about ‘overpopulation’? Is there evidence of it within these stats?
Based on the table above we can see that 48,321 dogs were processed by pounds over the year. While this includes the majority of intakes by major animal welfare groups (RSPCA, AWL NSW, SDCH etc), there would be a percentage of pets going direct to community rescue groups. This would not be a high number however, as most groups are only able to take on limited private surrenders.
According to last year’s Contribution of the Pet Care Industry to the Australian Economy (2010), there are 1.1 million dogs living in NSW. That means less than 5% of dogs are using pounds or shelters. If half of them are collected by their owners, just 2.5% of dogs are needing to be rehomed each year.
Christie Keith introduced a new concept with her recent blog post at Pet Connection; ‘low hanging fruit’
She suggests that we’ve got desexing rates to a rate of saturation;
Although there are places in the country where there’s still a good amount of lifesaving potential in increasing spay/neuter accessibility and prevalence, in most communities, we’ve already harvested the low-hanging fruit. Most pet dogs and cats are already spayed or neutered, and spending huge resources chasing down the tiny number who aren’t is going to result in ever-dwindling returns, particularly when it’s done at the expense of better sheltering and better adoption, as is so often the case.
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And that now our energies need to be turned to those areas where we can make huge percentage increases; ensuring lost pets are going home, and that pounds are either rehoming unclaimed pets, or are supporting rescue groups to save them.
It would take a very small increase in that rate — to save the lives of every healthy pet, as well as every pet with a treatable or manageable health or behavior problem, in every shelter.
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‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who only sends 20% of pets home. ‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who blocks access to rescue groups. ‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who refuses to open at times that allow working families and adopters to visit. ‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who refuses to list lost pets online, or keep lost pet databases. ‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who refuses to advertise available pets in local media in a positive way.
If we put as much effort into pursuing ‘Low hanging fruit’ in our own communities and at our local pound, as we do in beating the ‘desexing’ drum, the ‘anti-impulse buy’ drum, then we could make enormous inroads into saving lives.
