Once every four years, Councils in Victoria have to release their Domestic Animal Management Plans for review. This is a giant ass pain for Councils as it gives the public a brief opportunity to audit the performance of their local pound and animal management departments. And it’s usually not pretty.
To help to deter people from taking an interest Councils bury any revealing bits of info under dozens and dozens of paragraphs of slavering bureaucratese. A document which could be nailed in an A4 sheet blown out to a 50 page omnibus, in the hope you’ll get bored and go away.
To help you cut through the dog poo, I’ve pulled the details you actually need to know from the Hume City Council Domestic Animal Plan currently up for review.
In 2013/14…
DOGS
– Hume had 17,964 registered dogs living in the city
– 95.5% of which are desexed
– 1,126 dogs were impounded
– meaning just 6% of the dog population used the local shelter (and 94% of dogs did not!)
– 66% of dogs were reclaimed by their owners.
– The remainder, becoming the property of the pound provider (The Lost Dogs Home, North Melbourne), saw;
> 176 placed
> 204 killed
48 restricted breed dogs have been killed in Hume since 2011. Ratepayers have funded costs over $135,000 to defend 10 challenges, with four more pending. While dog attacks have risen from 154 in 09/10 to 157 in the current year.
CATS
– 5,284 registered cats live in the city
– 99.3% of which are desexed
– 1,478 cats were impounded
– But unlike dogs, just 5% were reclaimed (or just 60 individuals)
– The remainder, becoming the property of the pound provider (The Lost Dogs Home, North Melbourne), saw;
> 148 placed
> 1,270 killed
Undeterred by this slaughter, the city aims to ‘… increase cat trapping program by 10%’ next year and this will come at an ‘estimated cost’ to ratepayers of ‘$25,000’.
So there you have it. Are you happy Hume? Have your say…
Thanks for translating meaningless weasel words into an understandable summary.
It would be interesting to compare the results from all councils across Victoria and analyse what those achieving the best results are doing.
I can’t bring myself to say ‘only’ 204 dogs were killed. Compared with previous years, is this an improvement? Can the outcome be improved further and what would this take.
On the hand the cats, oh the poor cats. What is happening. My view is that people are less likely to register their cats than they are their dogs. Perhaps this is is a contributing factor to the low number being reclaimed.
How can the outcome for the cats be improved. It is just so depressing to see figures likes that. I guess one thing is that there is plenty of scope for improvement!
Carmel Murphy
THE POUND SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA SHOULD BE CHANGED. It is completely wrong and is oppressing both owners of domestic animals and even people who don,t own them. The Lost Dog,s Home is RACIST, and oppressive to domestic animals, and the Victorian Government is also useless.
They should not be permitted to make decisions about domestic animals which they don,t even own or care less about. There is no excuse for not trying to rehome a dog or a cat, there are always plenty of people who will take a pet.