Australian animal lovers are often berated with the idea that people in the United Kingdom are more ‘responsible’ and that we Aussies are all to be blamed for our high pound kill rates.
It is also often purported that the pet industry in the UK is less ‘saturated’ and that thanks to their more ‘responsible’ attitude to pets, they don’t suffer from the ‘overpopulation’ that we supposedly do in Australia. We’re even told that it’s harder to buy and own a pet, so that we should work to restrict Australian pet ownership somehow.
But how accurate are these assertions? And are we really much, much worse than our UK counterparts?
The UK is made up of Northern Ireland & Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales). Their human population is around 62 million.
The UK’s pet population was estimated to be 8 million cats and 8 million dogs.
Meaning 26% of people in the UK keep a dog or cat.
Australia is a much smaller country (about 1/3rd of the size) at about 23 million people.
And we keep about 3.4 million dogs and 2.3 million cats.
Meaning 24% of people in Australia keep a dog or cat.
So rather than there be a huge discrepancy between pet ownership in the UK and here, the numbers of pet-people are pretty similar. We both love our dogs and cats.
In 2011, in the UK 126,176 stray dogs were impounded.
Australia sees about 200,000 impounds
This means 2% of UK dogs are impounded each year, while around 6% of Australian dogs are. This is a difference, but both are still really small numbers.
A number of dogs will escape or be accidentally let out each year – we will never eliminate the need for this aspect of animal management. Ideally, we’d see less dogs go into pounds, but experience tell us trying to drive down already low rates by a handful of percentage points is unlikely to be straightforward, nor hugely effectual.
In the UK 48% of dogs were reunited with their owners (12% of these, went straight home and weren’t impounded at all).
In Australia, about 40-45% of dogs go home.
So after several decades of ‘responsible’ pet ownership campaigns and identification drives – that both countries have pretty similar reclaim rates.
But the overwhelming difference in numbers is what is taking place *after* the pound takes ownership of the animals.
In the UK, just 6% of dogs – or about 7,000 – were euthanised.
In Australia, 30-40% of dogs are killed (or between 60,000 – 80,000).
While the entire UK could be considered ‘No Kill’ for dogs, Australia is still using killing as the primary tool for their management.
There is not some magic ‘responsible’ gene found in our European counterparts. There isn’t some enormous cultural difference that stops their dogs from entering the pound system. However, unlike our own dogs, their dogs are actually protected once they get there.
(I’ve written about the differences between cat management between the two countries)
The UK are not perfect by any stretch – they have some very bad BSL laws and regressive ideas about rehoming – but their pound system offers protection for their pets, that Australian pounds simply choose not to provide.
Australians love their pets. And our pets deserve a world class animal management system, not the death sentence becoming lost or homeless currently condemns them to.
Find out what is going on at your local pound and shelter. Demand positive change.
Referencing: UK Stray Dog Summary 2011
Edited to add; I’ve since been in touch with the author of this survey and they have sent through even more current figures;
We have recently finished the 2011-2012 Stray Dogs Survey and this is now available on the Dogs Trust’s website at the following link:
You will find the most recent figures for these outcomes in 2012 were:
47% reunited with owner
9% rehomed from LG
24% moved to animal welfare/rescue
7% put to sleep
2% ‘other’ reasons
11% no answer/no reason
