The Lost Dogs Home’s 2011/12 Annual Report is out (thanks for the tip T!), and it again confirms that this organisation is a disaster for Victoria’s pets.
The organisation’s main income stream is offering impoundment and animal control services to local councils. Currently the number of local councils serviced is 22, with brand new contracts won over the year. This ongoing expansion has not only driven up the LDH revenue (up from $12.3 million in 2010/11, to $17.5 million in 2011/12), it has also seen their kill rate skyrocket from 11,872 killed in 2010/11, to 14,240 killed in 2011/12 (an increase of around 20%).
Cats are by far the biggest losers of the LDH expansion, with few being offered any option other than death. In a single year 10,347 were killed (or 80% of unclaimed animals). In the same year, 55% of the 7,069 unclaimed dogs were killed (3,893).
The report shows over the 2011/12 year the outcomes for pets were as follows;
5,462 – adopted
11,652 – returned to owner
14,240 – killed (3,893 dogs, 10,347 cats)
This means for every single one of the pets the organisation processes, they make a whopping $558, regardless of the outcome for the pet. By these calculations, they make a staggering $7.9 million dollars for pets who are simply killed and their bodies incinerated.
Along with council income, they also receive around bequests and donations annually, ($8.2 million in donations and legacies in 2011/12). Pet lovers hoping their contributions will see pets saved, ironically supporting one of the largest killer of companion animals in the country.
With all this money being generated from lost and homeless pets, what incentive does the Lost Dogs Home have to reduce intakes and killing? None. Even as the solutions to shelter killing have been available to the animal sheltering community since the 80’s and in the popular media since 2009 they still continue to choose to squander the enormous fortune given to them by the pet loving community every year… and kill, rather than save the lives of pets.
What’s more, the board of the organisation has been failing pets for literally decades;
The bulk of LDH income comes directly from the community, via lucrative local council pound contracts. The rewards for impounding and killing pets are currently enormous for the LDH. Killing pets and blaming the public is how the Home operates today, and without an enormous change of management, it will be how it operates tomorrow. Until the pound system is overhauled to reward live-release rates – not just intakes – there will be no hope for our community’s lost and homeless pets.
If you are in one of the following municipalities, then it is up to you as a ratepayer to demand change. If you are an animal lover it is up to you to let the media know this is important.
The Lost Dogs Home provide pound services for 12 councils (Moreland, Moonee Valley, Brimbank, Maribyrnong, Wyndham, Hobson’s Bay, Darebin, Echua, Yarra, Hume and Port Phillip).
They provide animal management services for the City of Greater Bendigo. The Home owns a property at Cranbourne west to service the Cities of Cranbourne, Bayside, Casey, Cardinia, Frankston, Greater Dandenong and Kingston. They now also run Brisbane City Council’s two pounds at Warra and Willawong and Wingecaribee in NSW.
This year public outcry over high kill rates saw Melbourne City Council dump the LDH as their animal pound provider. Community pressure does create change.
Don’t let another high-kill year go by without taking action.
This is disgusting.
I make monthly donations to the lost dogs home, I am going to rethink this as I don’t think the money is helping save lives of animals. That report is very sad to read, I thought more animals where being saved. In 2012 who would have thought this cruelty still exists.
the ldh are scumbags.
When I lost my dog ( I was in hospital, the people looking after her lost her) I called the ldh, only to get a whiny woman on the phone who told me I could not expect her to go and check every dog there to see if they had my dog.
In a whiny voice she said, ‘you do realise we get 40 to 50 dogs here a day, don’t you ?’
I asked why she could not just look up what dogs they had on a database, according to her they have NO such database.
They do not even have a page on their website where you can look up photos of all the pets in the shelter, and details about them. Even my local council has an active web page, updated every day, with photos of every dog and cat in the pound, and details about them, and they do not have 17 millions dollars to play with.
The ldh should be FORCED by the government to implement and maintain a website, with daily updates and pictures of every single animal brought into the shelter, including details of when and where they were picked up. They can bloody well afford to do it, so why don’t they ? Because it’s cheaper for the scumbags to kill these animals than make any extra effort to re home, or re unite them with owners.
I want the public to be made aware of this, so people stop donating to them, and stop leaving money in their will, this money is gained under false pretenses, they are told the ldh does every thing they can for the animals when clearly they do not.
I’m currently asking 60 mins australia on their fb page to do a story on this and expose the truth, I hope they do
It is time for the tide to turn and the LDH to start losing contracts.
A national disgrace.
A well researched and important article.
Might I suggest you include information as to what the “solutions to shelter killing” are?
At the moment the article only speaks to those who are already aware of such solutions, by including such information, you broaden the reach and potential impact of what you have written. People are more likely to share this information and send it viral, and more likely to feel like there is something they can personally do to help create change.
At the moment you risk creating outrage, but it being lost in the void of people believing while this is awfully sad, there is not much else that can be done.
$17.5m profit.
55% of unclaimed dogs killed.
Relentless profiteering.
Still seeking more contracts without being able to handle the volume they currently have.
Dr Graeme Smith of The Lost Dogs Home may be a brilliant businessman but he is certainly NOT an animal welfare advocate.
He is the lone bastion of support for BSL despite the rest of the world laughing in their face and crying for them to pay attention to the fact that is doesn’t work and doesn’t make the community safer.
Clearly it is time for him to step aside and let someone with more progressive thinking, a more compassionate outlook and a something resembling corporate conscience to take the helm and turn things around.
Melbourne City Council did a great job of paying attention to what the community is so concerned about.
What we need to see next is an incentive for pets rehomed and a penalty for animals killed.
14,200 animals belonged to 14,200 PEOPLE.Shouldn’t the responsibility for these animals actually lie with their owners? PETA have a kill stat. at their headquarters in the US of 95.9% kill and they have a hell of a lot more money than Lost Dogs Home.
It is a tragedy that companion animals die daily. But we can thank the pet shops,back yard breeders,puppy farms and a well known TV personality who promoted designer breeds as well as one of the biggest puppy farms in the country on his show.Place the blame where it belongs.There are simply not enough loving forever homes for all the animals born each year…and with Xmas coming up…it’s about to get worse come January / February :(
Alison the solution to shelter killing is one of the many non kill animal rescue groups all over australia.
These groups take dogs and cats from shelters and foster them out so they can be assessed for temperament, then they do their best to find the perfect furever home for them.
Many people who foster dogs and cats use their own money to do so, though the rescue groups rely on donations and adoption fees to cover veterinary costs.
If you or any of your friends wish to donate money to one of these rescue groups, please do so, knowing you money WILL save lives, unlike ldh.
You can find out about rescue groups in your area on facebook, a few of them are – Forever Friends Animal Rescue, Pet Rescue, Latrobe Pet Rescue, Cat Rescue and there are many others.
To find one in your area, do a search for rescue groups on fb naming your local area or town.
I’ll be writing to the councils that LDH has a contract with (thankfully, not mine) and encouraging them to follow MCC’s stance and terminate its use of LDH. In my experience, whenever there is no structural change at the top in an organisation for decades, as is the case with LDH, there is no progress.
It is time the voices of the community that the LDH are supposed to be serving were heard!
We demand you STOP KILLING OUR ANIMALS!
The community are sick of your lies, your poor excuses and your media propaganda.
If you can’t find a way to serve your community and deliver on their demands….get the hell out of there and make way for new management and a new Board who INSIST on it.
Your time is up!
Is there no end to the suffering that humans will inflict on animals? It absolutely infuriates me to think that there are organisations out there that are profiting from the horrid practices of selling animals that are part of the ‘business model’ of many pet shops and are standard for the ‘puppy farm/factory’ industry. This is compounded by a company making money from killing ‘leftover’ animals when many of us (wrongly) presume that their mandate is to assist in rehousing abandoned, lost or stray animals.
I agree with an earlier comment that pet fostering, pet rescue, and pet adoption groups deserve our support. My favourite group is Saffron on the Hill – dedicated to rescuing pugs and similar small dogs, but I wholeheartedly promote all such responsible groups, whether for dogs (big or small), cats, donkeys, rabbits, horses etc.
The practices and outcomes outlined in this blog concerning LDH are deplorable. Spread the word!
It too disgusts me that shelters with this type of business ethic still exists today, and more horrifying is that they are supported by the government through business contracts.
I wise one earlier did make the point earlier that some blame needs to be placed on people, for example those who lose a pet and make minimal (if any) effort to find them. Another example if people who desire designer dogs. I accept that for some people there are legitimate reasons for buying a purebred but I know for a fact that for many its an ego thing or they hold the misconception that mixed breed aninmals from shelters are inferior in some way. Most of us know this not true. All my pets have been purchased from the RSPCA in my home town
it saddens me to hear that the killing still keeps on going. Please have a thought for the lives that have ended and maybe, just maybe could have been taken in by a rescue group or have been fostered out and even made a wonderful into pet to be adopted. It is time for animals rights to be heard. Stand up and seek a better world for all to live in.