Nambucca Shire Council: “We don’t shoot dogs!”

Image: Header from the Nambucca Council Media Release.

It’s certainly one of the more interesting city slogans I’ve heard, and I’m not sure how it would look on a car numberplate, but Nambucca Shire Council General Manager, Michael Coulter has issued the following statement in response to online criticism of their pound’s near universal kill rate for unclaimed animals.

Mr Coulter would like you to know, that even though they killed 104 dogs in 2011/12 (rehoming just 4), they’re not doing an utterly, terrible job, because the dogs weren’t killed with a gun.

Nambucca Shire Council does not shoot dogs.
…
Animals are euthanized by lethal injection.

Over the seven month period 1 July 2013 to 31 January 2014 the Council rehomed 5 dogs.

It’s not that the dogs aren’t dead – they very much are. The point they’d like to make is that they weren’t shot, but they were poisoned “humanely” with a lethal injection. Yay.

Council have also stumbled into the realms of the bleedin’ obvious, stating…

… that it can improve it’s performance in relation to rehoming.

However, instead of outlining a plan of how they’re going to achieve this improvement in outcomes , Mr Coulter instead runs through a laundry list of how everything and everyone except them is to blame for the killing, including:

– Pet owners in general
– Breeders
– A lack of desexing
– Low registration rates
– The public for not being willing to pay the pound’s adoption fees of several hundred dollars
– The animals themselves for not being more adoptable
– The need to protect the public from dangerous animals
– “The social media” being meen…

In short, no matter how woefully inadequate Council’s effort, it’s really not their fault because stuff happens.

Rather than criticise them, Mr Coulter points out we should actually be grateful to Council because as dog “lovers” it’s a burden to choose to kill practically everything that walks through their doors…

The Council has great respect and admiration for the difficult job its Rangers have in companion animal control. As dog “lovers” they are acutely aware that many of the animals they have to destroy are the product of irresponsible breeding and ownership.

This is a heavy burden to bear, not assisted by malicious commentary in the social media suggesting they only care for shooting and destroying animals.

Despite Council’s assertion that staff deserve support in their roles, and that staff are being unfairly branded ‘killers’ by the community- we can only appraise them based on their performance to date.

– Killing 100 dogs and rehoming just four, is not adequate performance – it suggests staff don’t care for pets and have chosen to kill them.

– As no dog behaviouralist was engaged to appraise those dogs to see if any of them were saveable, treatable or placeable – it suggests staff don’t care for pets and have chosen to kill them.

– After more than a year of the community asking for reform, Council stated they would have animals online to help them find homes by the end of February. Given this still hasn’t happened – it suggests staff don’t care for pets and have chosen to kill them.

– As rescue groups have been denied access to photograph the dogs as they become available – it suggests staff don’t care for pets and have chosen to kill them.

I don’t know what evidence Mr Coulter is using to conclude that staff do actually care for pets, and aren’t simply choosing killing, as all the evidence seems to be absolutely to the contrary.

‘We don’t shoot dogs’, isn’t something to be proud of. It’s not a defence to killing practically every animal you are supposed to care for, to say their deaths were humane. Its not the fault of the public, if your pound staff are failing to do the job they are being paid to do. There are no excuses for such abysmal performance from a community funded public service.

Nambucca – enough is enough.