Why you need to care about our failing pound system

I’m going to tell you something shocking. Your pet is not safe.

If your fence blows over, and your dog wanders off, or if someone leaves your front door unlatched, and your cat escapes. If something spooks your dog at the park and he takes off, or if some half-wit opens your gate. Your pets are not safe.

As pet owners and pet lovers we do the right thing. We pay pet registration fees to the tune of millions of dollars each year and make donations to charity shelters of more than $100 million dollars per year. We believe that we are paying for a pet management system that will care for, and protect our pets, should they ever become separated from us.

And we are told that the problem lies with irresponsible owners, undesexed pets and over population. But we are wrong.

Instead, shelters kill our animals with heartbreaking frequency. Owned pets, lost pets, and animals in need are all swept up in this vast killing system that is deemed acceptable and normal. If you think your pet is safe – you’re wrong.

If you are counting on your pet’s microchip to save them, consider this. A 2011 report from WA showed just 48 of nearly 150 councils had a microchip scanner (just what has been happening to people’s pets at these other councils?)

What’s more, major national microchip manufacturer Virbac, has revealed that thousands of microchips implanted between 2010 and 2012 are faulty and can’t be read. Even then, for a microchip to ‘work’, you’re relying entirely on the hope that the pound operator cares enough to scan your pet thoroughly and effectively – however, there is little incentive for them to do so.

Should your pet be acting scared or aggressive, there is a clause in legislation in nearly all states which allows pound staff to simply kill your pet without scanning them. Even if microchipped, your pet is not safe

But you’ll look for your pet. So how will you find him? Most pounds don’t photograph pets, and their images aren’t placed online, so you will not be able to see easily if your pet is impounded. You will be expected to visit every shelter in person every day, to peer into cages.

Which is fine, if you can take a day off work – but what if it takes a week? Or if your pet is on the run for a month? What if he’s not at your local pound? What if someone took him to a pound outside your area? Which direction will you travel first?

Your pet may be held for literally just days. The lowest is 72hrs. The pound will not look for you. Your pet is not safe

But won’t the shelter care your pet until he’s found? Many pounds in Australia have no hygiene system at all, not even basic disinfectants. Few vaccinate on intake, so your pet will be housed with dozens of other pets of unknown origin, all potentially harboring disease that could be passed on and make them sick, or even kill them. Common and treatable illnesses such as ringworm are often used as an excuse to kill, so if your pet does get sick in the pound while he waits for you to find him, he will be killed for their convenience.

And how will your pet be killed? Pounds have been found to be drugging animals and allowing them to vomit, languish and die. They have been found to be using brutal injections into the heart of conscious pets. They have been found to be gassing pets in homemade, car-engine driven carbon monoxide machines. And even today, many, many pounds still drive pets to the local rubbish tip, tie them up, and shoot them in the head. All completely legal. Our pound system brutalizes pets. Your pet is not safe from harm in this system.

These are people’s family members we’re talking about. Animals who, right up until they became displaced, had probably known nothing but love and care. The first time most pets ever experience abuse is when they enter a pound. Even if the pound is using a so-called humane methods to kill, he will still be subjected to the ultimate violence – having his life taken from him.

We think the reasons pets are killed in pounds is because irresponsible people dump them there. We are satisfied by this explanation, because it makes us feel safe. We’re not one of the irresponsible people, so our pets will be fine. None of our pets are safe in this culture of killing.

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More than ten years ago I started volunteering at an animal shelter. Being new to animal welfare, I was keen to help. I was soon convinced that if we just promoted pets better, we could place them all in homes. I had friends with website skills, I understood marketing, and I was compelled to act.

We designed an adoption website that was easy to use and we offered it free to all pounds, shelters and rescue groups. The response to PetRescue’s launch from the public was immediate – they flocked to help and support our rescue groups. Two million Australian’s visit our site, looking to adopt a pet every year. And 95% of the animals with a PetRescue listing find homes.

PetRescue’s first year saw us place around 500 pets. This year we are set to place more than 50,000.

And yet, a huge number of cats and dogs are still being killed in Australia’s pounds and shelters every year. In fact, it’s still the leading cause of death for companion animals in our country – more common than death by accident, disease or old age. So I began to ask, if it’s not simply a marketing issue, what is it?

When you start to investigate the way pounds are run in this country. When you really start to crunch the numbers, a single truth becomes terribly obvious. Councils simply don’t see it as ‘their job’ to save the lives of the animals in their facilities. Killing is as acceptable as not killing. They don’t regard our pets as precious. Nor do they see their lives as valuable.

Just 2% of PetRescue members are pounds. Despite the service being completely and absolutely free. Many pounds still refuse to offer an adoption program of any kind. Many are still shooting companion animals with firearms.

Practically every pet who is killed in Australia today, was never publicly offered for adoption. So, it’s NOT that there aren’t homes for these pets – PetRescue’s success has proven that. It’s that these pets are still not being given the chance to find them.

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Councils are outsourcing their animal sheltering responsibilities to charity pounds. By collecting multiple tenders, these charities create an artificial state of ‘overpopulation’ and use this to justify the use of killing to manage their shelter populations. All the while councils don’t see it as “their responsibility” to save lives, they do little to challenge or work to drive these kill rates down.

The only thing that can protect our pets, is making local councils accountable to safeguard, treat and rehabilitate the animals they are being paid to care for. They need to see each and every pet as a valued creature, who either needs to go home, or be found a home. We need to reject death as an acceptable outcome for shelter animals.

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Everyone wants to see a better tomorrow for animals. And everyone wants to know how they can help make that a reality. It doesn’t matter if you are a shelter worker, a volunteer, a rescuer, an activist, OR if you define yourself simply as an animal lover. If you have a commitment to implementing No Kill programs in your community, you will succeed.

As a wealthy, pet-loving nation, we should boast a world leading animal management system. We give more than a hundred million dollars a year, to the major animal charities, because we want to see pets saved. We can solve this issue today.

The single most important thing you can do is to take audit of the way your local council deals with animal control. Find out what is going on at your local council pound. Find out exactly what results your taxes and your pet registration fees are achieving. Each and every high kill pound is surrounded by animal lovers, who are currently unaware of what is going on in their local facility.

If healthy and treatable pets are dying in your local shelter, your shelter is in crisis and they should be responding as such. They must resource only the essentials, put every effort in to rehoming animals, form relationships to expand life-saving capabilities and offer full transparency to afford your community the chance to assist.

They must stop niggling over terminology, stop defending poor performance, stop trying to think up reasons to shut out rescue groups and move to the opposite end of the spectrum, asking you, their local community, to help them now, in any way you can.

Shelters are like every other public service. We wouldn’t excuse a poorly performing hospital by saying ‘people shouldn’t get sick’, neither should we explain away the poor performance of a pound, by saying pets shouldn’t end up there. The community becoming more knowledgeable about their local council pound’s operations has the potential to save more lives than any other advocate action.

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As No Kill animal sheltering gains momentum across the globe and more people realise that successful overseas programs will work in Australia and in our own communities, it will become clear that pets have not been dying because of overpopulation or an ‘irresponsible public’.

Our pets are dying because an ineffective, apathetic and brutal pound system is killing them.

They’re our pets, we love them like family. They deserve safety.

It’s time for those who defend the killing to get out of the way. The rest of us have important work to do.

 

Take an audit. Overhauling the pound system – action every animal advocate can take to make a better future for pets

(This post was based on my speech at the Pound Reform Alliance Rally in March)

Finding it all unbelievable? Read part 2 here.