Rescue groups are realising that to be effective in their life saving mission, they must a adopt a client focussed mentality and implement programs and policies which encourage adoptions.

One of the most effective ways to make it easy for people to choose rescue, is to open at times that are convenient to the average pet owner. Most people work a 8am – 5pm day, so a shelter being open only within these hours doesn’t make it easy for people to adopt.

However, Twilight opening hours have never been trendier. If your shelter isn’t getting into evening adoptions you need to be asking yourself… why not?

First up, Animal Aid Victoria who listened to the feedback of their clients and are opening until 7pm on Thursdays and Fridays through the summer period.

Next is the RSPCA Victoria, who have recognised that working families simply can’t get to the shelter during the day and who have decided to offer ‘late night shopping’ hours on a Thursday.

Our Burwood East and Peninsula Adoption Centres are open until 7.30pm on Thursday evenings from 12 November until 4 March, 2010.

RSPCA Animal Welfare Shelter Manager Andrew Foran says that Twilight Adoption is to provide young professionals, families with children and people who maintain busy daytime activities on weekdays and weekends with the opportunity to attend the RSPCA shelter after 5.00pm to look for an animal for adoption.

The RSPCA Queensland have gone Twilight crazy, using the opening of the new film as a nice segway to a media blast.

Twi-hard RSPCA

AS New Moon the second film based on Stephenie Meyer’s wildly popular Twilight series opens in cinemas tomorrow, the RSPCA is getting into the spirit.

With “twi-hards” across the city in a frenzy of excitement, RSPCA staff at the Fairfield shelter are dressing up as film characters.

The campaign is aimed at highlighting the animal society’s new adoption times which have been extended into the twilight hours. The shelter is now open from 9am-6pm, seven days.

“We wanted to make the most of the extra light to meet our target of adopting out 2500 animals in Brisbane,” RSPCA customer service manager Ronelle Reid said.

“Last year, we just missed out on meeting that figure, and this year we hope people will dig deep to give our animals much-needed new homes this Christmas.”

These guys have gone above and beyond with their pledge to save lives, not only opening until 6pm, 7 days a week, but transporting needy pets interstate, offering their community in-store adoptions and leading the way in off-site programs with their mobile pet adoption vehicle.

Shelters who innovate to turbo-charge their adoptions save lives.

There is an excellent presentation from Maddies Fund on the Nevada Humane Society which outlines dozens of cheap and easy marketing techniques for shelters – be sure to check it out.

The AWL QLD’s photographer – try not to want to adopt these guys. No really.

Good science on how to take your community to No Kill from Maddies Fund:

On October 23 and 24, 2009, The University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine hosted the second annual Maddie’s^® Shelter Medicine Conference in Gainesville, Florida. The sold-out conference brought more than 200 veterinarians and shelter leaders from 22 states.

The first day featured shelter leaders from some of the nation’s most successful lifesaving programs. Their power point presentations are now available for viewing and downloading below.

The second day was led by UF’s own team of highly respected shelter medicine veterinarians who provided new information for attending shelter veterinarians and staffs.

Power Point Presentations:
Making the Move to Adoption Guarantee (Starr)
For a successful transition to adoption guarantee sheltering, start with strategic planning. Lay out a philosophy and be true to it. Incorporate the community and always ignore the naysayers.

Making the Move to Adoption Guarantee (Kogut)
The path to adoption guarantee is riddled with obstacles. Perhaps none are more difficult your organization’s own Board, staff and volunteers.

Taking the Guesswork out of Shelter Pet Evaluations
Follow the process Dane County, Wisconsin, and Richmond, Virginia used to create and implement a pet evaluation matrix for their community.

How Shelter Medicine is Helping Create a No-kill Nation
University shelter medicine programs are pioneering ways to keep shelter animals healthy, rehabilitate animals with physical and behavioral diseases, train shelter medicine specialists, and develop new knowledge.

Myth: Lifesaving Strategies Lead to Warehousing
Well run shelters avoid the pitfalls of warehousing with good management, a priority on health, efficient flow-through and good disease surveillance and monitoring programs.

Increasing Pet Adoptions – Saving Lives
No organization markets better than the Nevada Humane Society. How? Set goals, celebrate success, make it easy to fall in love, get the word out and the people in. (Don’t miss the 32 promotions highlighted in this presentation).

Foster Care Volunteers are Lifesavers
How do you save lives when your shelter is old, small and antiquated? Ask the community to foster needy dogs and cats and treat your fosters like the lifesavers they are. That strategy enabled The Seattle Humane Society to place 3,000 dogs and cats in foster care in 2008-2009, and achieve a live release rate of nearly 87%.

Foster Care – A Program for Saving Lives
What are the keys to a good foster care program? Find, organize, support, train, empathize and reward. So says Susanne Kogut, Executive Director of the Charlottesville-Albermarle SPCA who’s shelter fostered 2,000 dogs and cats last year.

With proven, life saving techniques becoming easily accessible through the power of the interwebs, those who refuse to investigate ways to improve their shelters’ performance are setting themselves up to be superceded, sooner not later.

Some of Australian rescue’s most exciting years, and most innovative and dynamic rescuers are yet to come!

The future is bright for pets.

Imagine if you told pounds and shelters tomorrow that they couldn’t kill a pet that a rescue group was willing to take?

Imagine if, instead of being able to gag rescue groups with threats to cut off their ability to rescue when they try and speak out about inhumane treatment of animals, pounds were forced to open their facilities up to public scrutiny?

Imagine if councils were forced to allow TNR programs and release cats to welfare groups willing to manage their colonies?

It’s not a dream – it’s the future of animal sheltering and it’s on the march to Australia.

From Nathan’s blog today, ‘Understanding Oreo’s Law’

Modeled after a successful California law, Oreo’s Law would save animals who are healthy and friendly but who shelters are threatening to kill. It will save sick, injured, or traumatized animals like Oreo in cases where No Kill shelters and rescue groups have the ability to rehabilitate them or provide lifetime care. It will save animals who a shelter claims are ‘aggressive’ even though they are not or may be rehabilitatable. It would save feral cats at shelters which oppose TNR programs and which are determined to kill them. And it will provide a form of whistleblower protection for animal rescuers by protecting their right to continue to save animals when they expose inhumane conditions at shelters. Currently, shelters can retaliate by barring them and killing the animals they want to save if they go public with concerns.

By seeking to limit what is now the almost unrestrained power to kill animals by shelters, and because it empowers those who want to save animals from those who are threatening to kill them, Oreo’s Law is central to the fight for a No Kill nation.

Read the rest of the article here (pdf)

Gapingvoid.com

The killing of six cats by Mildura Council using a firearm, when they had an available vet to administer lethal injections, has caused cat-lover outrage both nationally and internationally. However, the council remains unrepentant.

Mayor Glenn Milne released a statement saying the officer acted lawfully.

”Whilst destruction of animals via gunshot is not normally the standard procedure, it can be performed in certain circumstances,” he said.

”We regret that this has caused concern amongst the animal welfare community, however this is an accepted method that council can use. There were no malicious intentions by any member of staff.”
The Age

Mildura Council CEO Mark Henderson also defended the actions of the council worker stating the only apology they needed to make, was for the location that the animals were shot at… it should have been done away from a questioning public.

Mildura Cat Shooting (mp3)

The resulting community debate has been centered around whether shooting was an appropriate method to kill a cat and whether it’s more or less humane than a lethal injection.

What doesn’t seem to be even questioned is, did these cats have to be killed at all?

The idea that killing is any kind of kindness is bogus when the animals involved are, as they were in this case, young and healthy. The debate is so centered around the best technique to kill these animals, what no one is asking is are there programs that we could be using to keep these cats from entering shelters in the first place? And when they are impounded, are these cats unworthy of any kind of life, simply because they’re feral?

Faced with council animal management departments who unapologetically choose to use barbaric methods to take the lives of these animals and who promote a culture of protection for those doing this killing, how can we expect compassionate life-saving programs to develop? When cats are considered little more than garbage to be disposed of, how can we ever see improvements in shelter performance?

Not only should we reject outright the idea that the best we can do for these animals is death, we must demand that legislation is passed which sees them protected. Just as we have legislation which protects animals from the abuse of the public, we must have legislation that protects them from shelters, regardless of who is in charge and how much or how little they value life.

The Lost Dogs Home Managing Director, Graeme Smith has today claimed he’s aiming for…

… a zero euthanasia rate, with as many animals claimed and re-housed as possible

So if he’s truly interested in techniques that work to save the lives of pets and isn’t just paying lip service to the language of No Kill, what would he need to do to make ‘his’ dream a reality?

There are easily enough compassionate pet lovers in Victoria to solve the homeless pet problem should the Lost Dogs Home implement No Kill programs. Unfortunately however, even though The Lost Dogs Home are using the new No Kill language, they’re still very much stuck in a ‘kill’ mindset. When you examine the rest of the attitudes featured in the article, the hurdles that they need to overcome are glaringly obvious.

Hurdle to No Kill Number 1. – The Lost Dogs Home must take responsibility for its adoptions

… we need more support and we’ve got to convince the public to get a cat or dog from here

Having people adopt isn’t a given; especially when other sources of pets offer a more welcoming atmosphere, a better location and more convenient opening hours.

The promotion of adoptable animals using the internet, the media and local community resources to get the word out about rescue pet adoption is vital. Pet owners and the pets themselves should be painted in a positive light and the Who’s for Cat program should be scrapped as it detracts from the positives of cats in the community. And
adoption adverts like this:

I am an older dog looking for a new home. I will make a great pet for the right person however I may soon require veterinary treatment for diseases of old age such as arthritis and heart disease. I have had some grass seeds removed from my fluffy feet and have some meds to take home. My coat will need regular grooming and my new owner will need to check for stray grass seeds at this time of the year. I also am showing mild evidence of Hip Dysplasia. This isn’t canusing (sic) me any problems at the moment, but may require Veterinary attention in the future. Weight loss, swimming and joint supplements in my diet would help prevent my condition from progressing.

Where not a single nice thing is said about the pet have to go.

Special adoption events like these Twighlight adoption evenings, and off-site adoptions are vital to improving their adoption rates.

Also, they need to start opening when people can actually visit the shelter.

The Lost Dogs Home is open Monday to Friday: 10.00am to 4.45pm. The average person works 8am- 5pm, so would be unable to visit weekdays, without taking time off work. The weekend hours (Saturday and Sunday: 9.00am to 12.30pm) give the average adopter exactly 3.5hrs on a Saturday and 3.5hrs on a Sunday to visit the North Melbourne shelter. 7hrs per week for adoptions is hardly customer focused.

The new No Kill Lost Dogs Home’s media will focus on adoption and the positives of pet ownership. They will be open until 6 or 7pm weeknights for adoptions and animal reclaims. They will also look to extend their weekends into full trading days; 9am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. They will also be open on public holidays, especially over the xmas holiday period.

Hurdle to No Kill Number 2. – The Lost Dogs Home must increase its capacity

“We are in between a rock and a hard place,” Dr Smith said. “We’ve been given the job because the councils don’t want the job.”

It’s a wonderful opportunity that The Lost Dogs Home has been given. By being allowed to impound the lost and stray animals of Victoria, they have been handed an enormous capacity to harness community compassion, including a donor base of pet-lovers worth between $4 and $5 million dollars annually. They are easily one of the richest shelters in Victoria and all because local councils have entrusted animals into their care.

That said, there is no obligation for them to take on more animals than they can reasonably care for. Every private organisation has the right to decide what kind of role it plays in the community and choosing to continue to promote lethal forms of animal control is completely up to the management of the shelter.

If they don’t want to hand off some of their animal control contracts to other shelters with capacity (a completely viable option), then they must increase their own capacity. Internal programs such as foster care networks, volunteer programs and rescue group outreach, allow treatable pets to receive the care they need.

Foster care networks allow pregnant mums and bubs time away from the shelter to grow, dogs with treatable behavioural issues can be given a home environment to practice becoming better pets, and capacity to care for sick animals gives them time to get well.

Rescue group outreach involves connecting with the other rescue groups in the community to expand capacity, connect with more adopters and guarantee more pets homes.

A volunteer program will allow dogs to be given in-shelter behavioural training including daily walks, relaxation training, basic obedience and other drills which improve confidence.

The new No Kill Lost Dogs Home will recognise that working with the community allows them to expand their capacity to treat pets. They will run an extensive foster care program to give treatable animals a chance to get well. They will welcome volunteers to assist with animal care, rescue groups to take overflow animals and invest heavily in veterinary and behavioural rehabilitation.

Hurdle to No Kill Number 3. – The Lost Dogs Home must take charge in changing the Victorian legislation

Under the Domestic Animals Act, stray animals that were sick, deformed, aggressive, pregnant, anti-social or had known vices such as excessive barking could not be adopted, he said.

The Lost Dogs Home operates under the Domestic Animals Act, and is a member of the Domestic Animal Management Implementation Committee (DAMIC);

This committee was formed in 2002 to advise the Department of Primary Industries on matters related to the management of domestic animals in Victoria. Its purpose will be to advise on policy, programs, municipal council partnership, review the Domestic (Feral and Nuisance) Animals Act enforcement, co-ordination with other relevant committees and any matter the Minister refers to it.

They have had a hand in the legislation as it stands, now they must have a hand in now moving it in a lifesaving direction.

First, they must lobby the board which they already sit on, to have any of the legislation that causes treatable pets to die unnecessarily removed. This includes restrictions on broad use of community foster care networks, the transfer of treatable pets to rescue groups with capacity for further care and the removal of adoption deadlines like the ‘28 days then euthanase’ rule.

A large scale community based campaign, asking Lost Dog Home supporters to join them in advocating for change, would have huge support should it mean more friendly, treatable animals would be given the chance to get well and find homes.

Hurdle to No Kill Number 4. – The Lost Dogs Home must reduce its intakes

“We don’t have any control over the type of animals that come in”

One of the greatest realisations of a No Kill Director, is the recognition that each life is valuable and that it is no longer acceptable to kill one simply to make space for another.

Along with increasing capacity, there are programs which reduce intakes and therefore reduces the number of pets needing to be processed.

- Counseling sessions for surrendering owners; If you ask people to help solve the problem, and give them the resources and support to do so, most will. Surrendering owners should be interviewed as to why they want to surrender the pet and counseling offered whatever problems they might be having. If they are unable to afford vet care, programs to support low-income earners to owners to keep their pets should be offered. These kinds of programs have been shown to reduce surrenders by 40%.

- Feral cats; programs which call on the community to round up and impound stray cats, require thousands of unadoptable animals to be processed that could have been desexed and left to live out their lives. Rather than ask people to impound cats, they should be offered free desexing vouchers and asked to redeem it at their local vet, with the understanding that many nuisance behaviours reduce once an animal is desexed. They must immediately halt the impounding of unowned cats without identification or microchip and ask that people instead allow them to desex strays and return them to where they were found.

- Fines for stray animals; one of the biggest reasons people didn’t collect their animals in 2008/09, was families under financial strain being unable to afford the fines they incurred. This meant animals who had families, were ending up on death row, not because they weren’t wanted, but because their families were too poor to save them.

The new No Kill Lost Dogs Home will work with owners to help them keep their pets, including access to free behavioural support and veterinary care if required. Stray cats complainants should be given access to outreach desexing programs, not encouraged to trap cats and local councils should be lobbied to waive the fines of owners who aren’t repeat offenders.

Hurdle to No Kill Number 5. – The Lost Dogs Home must stop blaming its public

“Dogs are not as well socialised in the west as they are in the east”

Rather than look to their public as ‘the problem’, No Kill shelter directors see that they are the solution. No shelter ever got to No Kill by blaming and acting as adversaries to their communities.

No Kill directors also recognise that by offering support networks for the most vulnerable pet owners in the community, they reduce intakes and save the lives of pets. The Lost Dogs Home, like most shelters serve both very rich suburbs right through to the poorest. But rather than blame sections of the community for what they’re not doing ‘right’, they need to start working to help them. Are the pets unsocialised? How could they get them to attend training? Is there a culture of young people and ‘tough’ dogs? How could they get them access good pet care information? If people are having pet problems, how could they encourage them to call first for help and advice, rather than just to surrender?

If the dogs entering the shelter aren’t socialised, intensive programs to help rehabilitate them for common and treatable behavioural problems are made even more vital. Veterinary behaviouralists, and behavioural trainers should make up a large section of the Lost Dogs Home employee workforce and a behaviour phone helpline developed to help owners before the animal ends up in the shelter.

The new No Kill Lost Dogs Home will stop blaming owners for Victoria’s pet problems and start engaging them in solutions. Behaviour advice and training should be free and easily accessible for the public and intensive rehabilitative programs made available to all treatable impounded animals.

But the biggest hurdle to No Kill at The Lost Dogs Home?

While it would be lovely to think of The Lost Dogs Home going No Kill, or ‘getting to a zero euthanasia rate’, unfortunately it is impossible for them to get there, doing the same thing they’ve always done and that’s got them to where they are now – you cannot kill your way to No Kill.

Celebrating a 1% reduction this year, or a 2% in three years only cements the idea that what they did a decade ago (rehomed some pets and killed the rest) is still appropriate today. In the face of alternatives and pressure from the community to eliminate the killing of healthy, treatable pets; to continue to defend a model that blames pet owners and treats pets like garbage to be ‘disposed of’ is obscene when so much wealth has been donated to save these animals.

The truth is out. The Lost Dogs Home could go No Kill tomorrow; the fact they don’t and won’t is not the fault of the public, but the failure-centric culture of the organisation itself.

Today, at my shelter’s open day, I got suitably baked under the clear blue skies of Perth.

When I came home, I sat on the steps with my secret cat.

What’s that you said? I didn’t know you had a cat! Aren’t you desperately allergic?

*nods seriously*

But we mostly just hang out with each other. Just chillin, not touching. She lives under the front stairs of my new house. Her old owners moved and left her behind. When I rang them, they said she was an outdoor cat who they were worried would just run away if they moved her. I agreed it’s probably hard to move an outdoor cat. I said she could stay.

There was a box of cheap cat biscuits left in the shed. She’s now eating premium bix and wet food as it seems to make her happy. She’s desexed, but I’ll see if I can’t get the mobile vet out to get her vaccinated in the next few weeks after she trusts me a bit more.

She’s under the stairs in the morning and only comes out when she hears my voice. I wonder if she prefers women to men? She’s really very lovely. Her old name is Smokey.

But I think I’ll call her Secret Cat. It seems fitting.

Proponents of mandatory desexing legislation seem to be of the opinion that anyone who opposes it must be somehow disconnected from animal sheltering, an animal hater or just plain ignorant. So Dr Harry Corbett got referred to as all of these things when he pointed out to Melton compulsory desexing supporters, that applying laws to owned cats in an attempt to reduce the feral population is well… incredibly stupid.

Melton cats law ‘won’t work’

A Melbourne veterinarian has urged Melton Council not to rush into following the populous view of making cat desexing mandatory.

Bayswater veterinarian Dr Harry Corbett says mandatory desexing is not the answer to curbing the shire’s spiralling cat population.

Leader has been inundated by messages of support for mandatory desexing laws for Melton shire during the past fortnight.

Melton Council is reviewing local laws and expects to strongly advocate mandatory desexing of newly registered dogs and cats next year.

But Dr Corbett says a change in the law was a short-sighted response.

“Over 95 per cent of female house cats are desexed,” he said.

“What the animal welfare people are wanting is a law that forces people to do what they are already doing. Mandatory desexing laws can only work if it is the progeny of household cats that are ending up in the pound.

“We know this is not the case.”

Dr Corbett said 80 per cent of all cats admitted to pounds and shelters were street cats.

Melton Council’s administrative services manager Peter Bean said council officers would investigate all options available before putting forward its recommendations.

He agreed that most of the cat problems were due to feral cats and said it was important not to disadvantage law-abiding owners.

“We have 4000 registered cats, of which only 150 aren’t desexed,” he said.

Melton, as a shire in Victoria, is in the privileged position that it doesn’t need to ‘guess’ the dynamics of the cat population entering its pounds and shelters – there have been university studies done on that population, based in Victoria. (I know – great huh?) These found that 80% of cats entering shelters were non-owned or semi-owned and of the owned cat population 93% are already desexed.

Unfortunately those driving these laws aren’t interested in these figures. Neither are they interested in the fact that mandatory desexing has failed to bring down cat euthanasia rates every single place it’s been tried. They don’t care that compulsory desexing results in more animals dying in shelters as people are pressured into giving up their animals, or that precious resources that could be spent on desexing programs that have been shown to be effective, end up diverted into the expense of enforcement. Nor do they care that the only people who are effected by these laws are poor people, as the pets of people who can afford the surgery are already desexed at near universal rates.

They don’t care and are not interested in any of these things because they’re not looking for, you know solutions.

The ugly truth is, they want to punish people. They honestly believe that with their new legislation they will be able to coerce and bully the public into behaving the way they want. The great irony being that overwhelmingly, people are already doing what they want them to do, and that with a little support, the few remaining would too.

But blustering with self-righteousness, the evidence that cat owners are actually not the problem is not able to be processed. Advocates argue that the laws weren’t enforced enough, or on a large enough scale… you know, when something isn’t working – do it harder (or the definition of insanity),

“Of course this law will work!” they declare. “If people are made desex their cats, then more cats can’t be born and then have to die in shelters.”

And then my favourite;
“If you are anti-compulsory desexing legislation, maybe you should go to your local shelter and kill some kittens; then you’ll see!”

Well, I work in a shelter AND I’m anti-compulsory desexing. If I thought for one moment it would work, then I’d be the biggest advocate around; I’d shout it across the interwebs. But it doesn’t work and has never worked. It fails to protect pets and drives more of them into shelters.

But worst if all, it makes those other programs, the ones that do work, like free pet desexing for low income earners, semi-owned community cats and multiple cat households nearly impossible.

Its time we stopped listening to those who are driven by their ‘feelings’, look at the facts and start rolling out programs that are actually effective.

The cats lives depend on it.

Story of hope from the RSPCA QLD and ABC Brisbane

147 poodles (11 still need homes)

Remember all those poodles that the RSPCA found two years ago?

Over 100 dogs were found in filthy conditions at a site in Waterford.

It’s taken two years, multiple court appearances and more than one million dollars in veterinary treatment but today the poodles are looking at a happy future thanks to many dog foster parents.

Gorgeous Penny (pictured) is now seven years old with a healthy, chocolate coat and a happy personality to match.

Breakfast reporter Rebecca Levingston met Penny today:

Download the interview here:
bfast-181109-poodles-net-final