It seems simple, but here’s the thing; consumer behaviour drives change far more effectively than lobbying for legislative solutions.


So when it comes to pet stores we have to remember these are businesses and profits matter. But while we boycott their stores, many are still unaware why they are losing customers. We have to spell it out.

Introducing the Where do puppies come from?
Pet store feedback card


Dozens of people dropping in feedback cards will speak volumes to the store owners about the wishes of their customers.


Drop it off politely directly to the store, or post it to them. Include as much or as little contact information as you’re comfortable with. We’ll be hitting the media over the next few days just asking people; if this is something you care about tell your local pet store directly.

They can take their cards and look for more information (get better educated on the issue), or they can go one step further – change their policies and be promoted via the Where do puppies come from? website. We’ll even help them reach their local media!

Encourage store owners to make the change and get pets out of stores – it’s good for business, it’s good for communities and
it’s very, very good for pets.

RSPCA NSW has appointed a second inspector in the Hunter to cope with an increased workload at the same time as animal rescue groups say the spate of animal cruelty cases reported recently in the media are only the tip of the iceberg.

Scotty, a Pekingese, was nursed back to health by Sue Barker, of Warners Bay, after being set alight and found in the street suffering third degree burns.

Ms Barker, Dog Rescue Newcastle carer co-ordinator, owns three dogs and looks after several rescued animals. She said she could not bear to give Scotty away to another home after everything he had been through.

“I have been doing rescues for 30 years and animal cruelty in the Hunter is the worst I’ve ever seen. We are performing rescues on a daily basis. It’s horrifying and shocking. There are some places, such as Kurri and Cessnock, where it’s particularly bad. The RSPCA isn’t called to the majority of cruelty cases we see,” she said.

Four Paws Rescue founding member Colleen Moloney also said animal cruelty in the Hunter was the worst she has witnessed.

Scotty one of many saved from animal cruelty – The Herald

Bad rescues! Bad! Repeat after me;

if we tell people that rescue pets are abused, people will think that rescue pets are abused!

And the overwhelming majority of people don’t want a faulty, abused pet – they want a nice, friendly not-abused one.

I know, I know – it seemed like a great media opportunity and you weren’t really sure what the story was going to be about. But never, ever get sucked into the dangerous world that is confiding in a journo your disappointments, heartbreak or peeves.

So how do you tell which stories to put your name to?

1. Never agree to anything the minute a journalist cold calls you.
   Ask the person what the topic of their story is and ask if you can call them back in an hour. If they say no, then realise that’s too much pressure for someone who doesn’t work in the media to cope with and just say sorry no thanks.




2. Then, have a good think about the topic; does this story help me with my efforts to match pets with new adopters?
   That is, does it paint my animals in a good light? Does it promote rescue as a great source of pets? If it’s a traditionally ‘bad’ news story, is there anyway to put a positive spin on it? (beware often there isn’t).




3. If there’s no way to make the story about the benefits of adoption, politely excuse yourself from the story
   telling them upfront “I don’t think this really helps us find more homes for pets.”

But what about those RSPCA stories of cruelty that get shown? Aren’t they effective in reaching people?

Yes and no. Sure, the media take notice of horror stories and you may get a spot in the 6pm news, but!


While the RSPCA ‘brand’ can take the hit (it’s part of their core business to deal with animal abuse) and people donate money after they see these ‘bad news stories’, just as often they do a happy news story like ‘happy tails day’ or a live cross from the weatherman to their shelter, or they do a education piece like ‘pet care in hot weather’. They do all this because they are a behemoth with paid PR staff and a strong working relationship with the media.


While you? Chances are you’re a volunteer group who features in the media once in a blue moon. Do you want the first match on a google search on you to be that time you told everyone how abused your pets are?


Happy smiles and happy tales; they might not sell newspapers, but they sure move pets.

The managed colony of cats are of happy disposition and form a part of the framework of our animal inhabitants, who contribute their fair share in the balance of nature.

Their elimination is both foolhardy and cruel.

Bob Kerridge CEO Auckland SPCA

This month’s (US) Animal Sheltering magazine features no less than three articles on Trap, Neuter and Release (TNR) programs and the enormous effectiveness they’re having overseas.

Twenty years ago, the typical municipal response to public complaints about stray and feral cats fell into one of two catergories; the cats were trapped and killed, or the call was simply ignored.

But research has increasingly indicated that trap-and-euthanase (kill) programs fail; because of cat population dynamics; when some cats are removed those remaining have larger litters, more of whom survive.

More and more communities have come to recognize the humane and practical value of well-managed TNR programs. With proper implementation and monitoring, TNR can help to permanently reduce cat numbers and improve quality of life for feral cats. ref

So how are Australian cat welfare advocates embracing the new wave of animal saving programs taking place overseas?


The Victorian ‘Who’s for Cats?’ campaign is regarded as one of the forerunning initiatives to address the cat overpopulation problem in Australia. Based around the premise of addressing the semi-owned cat issue, the slogan is simple;

“stray cats: either adopt them or call your council”
(read: adopt it or call us and we’ll catch it and kill it)

Which is exactly the same way animal welfare has been handling the cat issue since the RSPCA started in 1871 and it hasn’t worked yet. However, they seem to think this year might be the year.

Is anyone actually for cats?

In light of this new thinking from overseas that TNR programs are a humane answer to stabilising cat numbers, while presenting at the recent AAWS on the ‘Who’s For Cats?’ Dr Carol Webb, the head of the The Cat Protection Society, was asked “has your group considered Trap Neuter and Release as part of the program?”

Her response;

In terms of in Victoria, it’s actually illegal at the moment and it’s difficult to get around the legislation because all the cats must be registered and so there has to be somebody who takes responsibility for them.

Caring for homeless cats is illegal!? That seems like a law someone who hates cats might dream up. So who was it lobbied for compulsory registration? The Cat Protection Society!

In the next couple of weeks, the Cat Crisis Coalition (CCC)- made up of the RSPCA, the Lost Dogs Home and the Cat Protection Society – will make its official debut

This is the same coalition that successfully lobbied for the Domestic Animals Act 10 years ago. ref

The Domestic Animals Act that requires that;

(1) The owner of a dog or cat must apply to register that dog or cat with the Council of the municipal district in which the dog or cat is kept, if the animal is over 3 months old.

So the laws prohibiting TNR programs were initiated by the CCC. The very same group now blaming these laws for not being able to be able to implement these life saving programs!


But laws for compulsory registration have been a huge success, right? Well, despite claims at the time that compulsory registration would reduce the killing by helping shelters identify lost cats, according to the CCC, they didn’t effect the cat population or euthanasia rates one box’o'kittens;

The numbers of cats entering shelters has not decreased over the past twenty years, in fact numbers have increased and the percentage being euthanased has not changed significantly. Overall, 53,000 cats enter Victorian shelters annually, of these 35,000 are euthanased (75%)

So compulsory registration has been a massive failure in reducing pound populations or the number of pets killed.

Surely, TNR would be worth a try now?

Well no. Despite their last attempt at crafting laws to curb ‘irresponsible owners’ being a flop, rather than look to trying new ideas based on programs that have worked elsewhere Dr Webb and the CCC are working to up the strength of the old legislation;

For the first time, all major Victorian shelters have joined together with the sole aim of achieving mandatory desexing of cats, in order to reduce cat overpopulation and stop the heartbreaking destruction of so many cats each year. Cat Crisis Coalition website

But hangon; wasn’t the problem that the old laws that they didn’t actually address the issue of unowned cats? And aren’t these new laws also targeting animals that have owners? Well yes…

The president of the Australian Veterinary Association, Kersti Seksel, agreed the cost would be unjustified, and said compulsory desexing was largely ineffective.

She said research from Victoria showed unowned or semi-owned cats were responsible for most unwanted offspring. “Compulsory desexing will have no effect on this population, as you cannot make anyone desex an unowned cat.” ref

Even the CCC agrees owned cats are desexed;

As the majority of cat owners are responsible (AVA cites 94%), compulsory desexing will not add any additional cost to owners as they are doing it already.

So if owned cats are desexed and unowned cats aren’t, does Dr Webb really think this new law will work? And is it really anything new?


Nope! Dr Webb has been thinking we should have this new law that won’t work, for more than two decades;

Mandatory desexing of cats? I unashamedly say I’m a strong supporter of it. There is a reluctance in some quarters to introduce it because they don’t believe it will be effective. In terms of whether on it’s own is going to be effective then no, a holistic approach is required with all the tools to be directed at varying levels of the population to bring it under control. But a strong supporter yes, I’ve been that for twenty years and I’ll be it for twenty more.
Dr Webb, AAWS Conference Q&A Session

Any new laws should be based on science, on what works and not cause more problems than it solves. But once again the people pushing for this legislation are not doing so based not on fact, but emotion and the old fashioned premise that they have to ‘punish’ and already compliant public to be effective.


The result of the ‘Who’s for Cats?’ program to date? According to Dr Webbs presentation; a 25% increase in cat intakes and shelters receiving record numbers of impoundments. They’ve bought some trapping cages to reduce the waiting list for council provided traps. 3 out of 4 cats that wind up in the shelters are put to death. And the campaign is being hailed a success!

With friends like these

Despite a history of failure of new laws or campaigns based around catch and kill to improve the situation for cats, the failure of the CCC to improve shelter kill rates from 75%, the likelyhood that compulsory desexing will actually increase the number of cats killed and that these new laws will render proven lifesaving TNR programs completely workable, the ever-enthusiastic CCC are pushing ahead.


From this weeks Manningham Leader

Animal welfare agencies are not pussyfooting around their anger at Manningham Council’s decision not to introduce mandatory cat desexing.

The Cat Crisis Coalition, a group of 12 cat welfare organisations, wants Manningham Council to only register cats that have been desexed.

Coalition spokeswoman Carole Webb said the council’s revised Domestic Animal Management Plan, released last month, was “manifestly inadequate” and “does not seriously address the issues of cat overpopulation or high euthanasia rates”.

Sure, they’ve been rejected this time. But with local government being pressured by the state’s main animal welfare groups, it’s only a matter of time before the people who purport to care for cats, get the powers they need to kill many, many more.

Legislation may be worded so that the result of non-compliance is the impoundment and death of the animal. Many jurisdictions have seen their impound and death rates increase following the passage of laws which give agencies carte blanche to round up and kill outdoor animals. If a shelter has high rates of shelter killing, it makes no sense to support the passing of laws that give them greater power and more reasons to impound – and subsequently kill – even more animals.

Redemption – Nathan Winograd

How many cats have to die before we stop history repeating and look to other countries to find out what works? Only time will tell.

There are more than 30,000 unwanted cats born in Victoria every year. More than half of these end up in Carole Webb’s office. She kills about 10,000 a year.

The average life of a shelter worker is six months. “I understand why people have to get out, but I can’t,” says Dr Webb. “There is no one willing to take my place.” ref

Lost Dogs Home director Graeme Smith said the shelter was fully behind the legislation.

“The Lost Dogs Home sees 10,000 cats or kittens a year, with an adoption rate of 5 per cent,” Dr Smith said. ref

“Unowned cats are a significant source of nuisance in the community. They prey on wildlife, fight with owned cats and spread disease.” RSPCA animal welfare spokesman Andrew Foran

The unacceptable truth is these groups are busy doing what they’ve always done, blaming an irresponsible public and continuing to kill. Cat lovers should be outraged that those who claim to care the most for cat welfare would rather have more laws to allow them to kill even more cats than fully support piloting lifesaving TNR programs.

See the Humane Society’s section on Helping Feral Cats

The mantra ‘desex! desex! desex!’ makes a lot of sense when your shelter is killing pets by the hundreds; so it’s almost a natural progression to start to think ‘if everyone was made desex their pets, then we wouldn’t have all these homeless pets to kill’. And it does seem like a solution when you see the same people time and time again, dropping off litters of kittens and picking up their entire dog after its escaped.

But is having the government make laws to force pet owners to desex their pets really the key to stopping the killing?

I’ve written about the problems with compulsory desexing of cats previously; mainly that 85 -90% of owned cats are already desexed and that the problem is being driven by the unowned and ’semi-owned’ pusses. Compulsory desexing in this case would be a big-fat-cat-cull initiative and not something anyone interested in saving the lives of pets should support.

So what about dogs? Who keeps entire dogs and should we force them into getting their pet sterilised? Seems pretty obvious doesn’t it?

I can hear you nodding ‘yes’

But here’s the thing. A backyard breeder who wants to breed their dog will breed their dog. They’re either a law-follower and will seek to apply for the exemption offered to ‘breeders’ or they’re a law-flouter, and they’ll simply ignore the law.

There’ll always be jerks who flaunt the rules but now, with the risk of being turned in, said jerk is much less likely to do the other things that keep a dog healthy, like taking it for a walk, microchipping it or taking it to be vaccinated once a year. They’ll be less likely to visit the vet with their now pregnant dog so will just ‘let nature take its course’. And should these owners be caught and presented with a warning to desex or get a fine, they’ll just leave the dog at the pound. Because they’re jerks.

So this great plan to ‘punish the irresponsible owners’ into compliance, has done nothing but land us with a homeless dog and sent this person back out into the market to buy another pup. They won’t learn anything except to go even further ‘underground’ next time and their new pet is likely to suffer even worse as a result.

But that’s not the worst of it.

The other people who don’t desex (and who’ll be the majority of people caught up in this bad legislation) are the pet lovers who genuinely can’t afford to have their animals desexed. When faced with the option of desexing their animal or paying slowly increasing fines, you know which they can afford? Neither. So again, we rescuers, the ones pushing for this legislation to reduce the number of pets in pounds, have a just forced a pet owner to give up their dog.

When the heat dies down, or this disadvantaged owners is in a better financial position, being a pet-lover they’ll get another pet, but it won’t be a rescue. Rest assured people don’t buy their next pet from the people that took their last. They’re going to buy a puppy on the internet or through a pet shop and guess what? It won’t be desexed.

So, now instead of having one pet who would have been desexed if some assistance had been offered, we have two pets; a dead one at the shelter and a new one in the pet lovers home that still isn’t desexed.

Around and around it goes. More dogs killed, not less.

Punishment feels nice

While it might feel good to bring in laws forcing people to do as we say, making shelters about pet seizures through laws that punish the poor is simply bad business. It won’t stop people being jerks, it won’t make people care for their pets any better and it certainly won’t lead to a single pet adoption.

The ‘only people like me deserve a pet’ ideology is alive and well in rescue. Not a day goes by when I don’t hear someone say “people who don’t desex are irresponsible” and “irresponsible owners need to be held accountable” – seems we’re all about judging and trashing people, not helping them.

But being a responsible pet owner isn’t as simple as lopping off a pair of testicles; it’s about training, socialisation and good pet care. Forcing otherwise good owners to give up their pets because “if you can’t afford desexing, then you’re irresponsible” is not about animal welfare, it’s simply prejudice deeming them ‘unworthy’ to own a pet. We need to start treating everyone as an individual and recognise that sometimes people simply need help to do the right thing, not to be shamed and punished for their situation.

If we want to do something to actually reduce the number of pets in pounds we need to look at what’s keeping people from doing what we want them to do and then help them do it.

Set up free desexing clinics and make it easy for people to access them. Work with local council to identify those people who might need some help and offer it to them. Move proactively to help your community be better pet people.

Mandatory desexing is all about trying to punish the jerks. But jerks will find a way to be jerks no matter what we do. We should instead put our energy, time and resources into trying to help those people who aren’t jerks, but who are simply doing it tough.

First it was Oprah.


Now, a new Nickelodeon and Dreamworks movie Hotel for Dogs due out in January;

This husky spent her whole life having babies for a puppy mill that sold puppies to pet stores.


When she couldn’t have any more puppies, instead of letting her retire in comfort, the puppy mill just dumped her. In her new home, she’s going to finally get the pampering she deserves, like any hard-working mother should. She’ll get her hair done, her nails clipped, lots of naps and tasty treats.

Its official – the connection between pet shops and puppy mills is now common knowledge. And no amount of media spin or political lobbying will help the groups advocating pet store sales to seem anything but completely unfashionable.


As they say… Elvis has left the building.