Pet owners in orange are more ‘irresponsible’ than most says animal management in the city:

More cats and dogs are being impounded or abandoned in Orange than most other towns and cities, with over a third of all animals going into our RSPCA shelter never making it out alive.

“There’s no doubt the city has a significant problem,” RSPCA NSW animal wellbeing executive manager Susan Hill said yesterday.

…….
“I think it’s appalling and a very sad reflection on pet ownership in Orange,” said councillor Neil Jones, a member of a newly formed group hoping to tackle the problem.

There appears to be a direct correlation between the failure to register and microchip animals and rates of impoundment or abandonment.

Sixty per cent of the 979 dogs housed at the shelter in the seven- month period were not micro-chipped while 80 per cent were not desexed.

Just 35 of the 475 cats at the shelter were desexed.

The figures demonstrate residents continue to ignore the Companion Animals Act.

It dictates the mandatory registration and microchipping of cats and dogs.(ref)

It’s a weird phenomenon that when animal departments see a trend (an overwhelming number of undesexed, unchipped pets winding up in rescue), they often see it as a chance to harangue their community (”we need harsher penalties”), rather than an opportunity to help them.

This whole article could have been a chance to let people know about the services Orange offers the pet owners of their community;
- Their discount desexing programs for low income earners
- Their free desexing offers for community cats
- Their dog training classes and the opportunities for socialisation
- The benefits of microchipping and the next free microchipping event they are hosting
- The opening of a new off-leash area
- The upcoming door knock in ‘at risk’ areas to advise householders of their pet ownership obligations and to offer support and assistance to disadvantaged owners
- The benefits of pet adoption and their next adoption event
… etc, etc.

But no, they chose to go with punishment:

“I believe we need to start getting tough in relation to enforcement,” Cr Jones said.

“However, whether penalties would be a deterrent to people who simply can’t afford to pay fines is another issue.”

Fines don’t help people, in fact they can take resources away from doing something constructive.

Telling your community that you think they’re crap doesn’t show them how to become better pet owners.

When there are trends in the community, that’s a really good thing as it allows us to focus out energies on targeting these issues.

There are solutions. The first step finding them is to stop criticising the people we should be supporting.

I’m republishing this article from over a year ago, as this week the WA media has been filled with some of the most explicit animal cruelty reports I’ve ever seen.

Is our language driving people to surrender?

When we speak to the media, it’s often about the reason de jour that people are giving when surrendering their animals. Obviously the latest trend is ‘the economy’ and you don’t have to search very hard to find a rescue group lamenting that financial issues are causing people to hand over their pets.

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) – They’re man’s best friends, but apparently not in times of financial stress, as hundreds of people in Australia are abandoning their pet dogs and cats, often because they cost too much.

Coming up to the xmas holiday period, the rescue media blitz is on owners who surrender because they couldn’t find a boarding kennel or because they wanted to go on holidays. And the old chestnuts, allergies or moving house never really seem to go out of style.

So what would you say if I told you that by promoting these reasons for pet relinquishment, we’re actually encouraging people to surrender their pets? Would you reconsider your next media release?

People do what other people are doing

‘Social proof’ is a psychological phenomenon described by Robert Cialdini in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Call it the ‘herd mentality’. If unsure of what to do, people will look to others and just… do what they do.

It’s the reason teenagers all dress alike and why advertisers use slogans like ‘1000 happy customers can’t be wrong’. Because we care a great deal about what others think of us, we work hard to fit in and avoid being criticised. We are highly susceptible to ‘popular opinion’, as when we’re not sure, we assume others know more than us and just fall into line.

Social proof can be an extremely powerful tool in marketing. If convinced that ‘everyone else is doing it’, people often overcome any reservations and comply. Also, the more people that engage in a particular behaviour, the more acceptable this behaviour becomes. Think rubber bracelets, recycling or Red Nose Day.

In the case of social proof bringing about accepted social change, anyone who falls outside the new ‘trend’ will be ostracised and the community will essentially self-regulate. As anyone who’s watered the lawn outside of their non-allocated day will tell you!

Testimonials are a very powerful form of social proof and your adopters are by far your best advertisement. By including the stories of other happy adopters we say ‘Look! They’ve done it and they’re really happy’, and help to alleviate any reservations people might be having about taking home a rescue.

So what’s this got to do with surrenders?

Social proof isn’t all good news. This ‘monkey see – monkey do’ also extends to unfortunate events and leads to negative ‘copycat’ behaviour. If a celebrity commits suicide for example, mass media coverage soon leads to more suicides. The simple explanation being that they feel validated by the suicide of another, so they act.

From Copyblogger;

In other words, social proof also tells us it’s okay to do what we already want to do. This isn’t all bad, especially when it involves the acceptance of your message. But it can also result in negative social proof, in that it motivates people to do the opposite of what you want because you’re trying to change behavior already supported by social proof.

Take a look at these well-intended messages:

• This year Americans will produce more litter and pollution than ever before. ~U.S. Forest Service
• 4 years ago, 22 million single women did not vote. ~Women Vote
• 42% of college graduates never read a book again. ~Dan Poynter’s ParaPublishing

These messages point out important problems. But what are some people really hearing?

• Everyone litters, it’s not just me.
• Voting is a hassle, and others like me think so too.
• I don’t enjoy reading, and I’m in a lot of good company.

These are all examples of negative social proof. Instead of prompting people to change, it encourages people to stick with the crowd that hasn’t changed (especially if the change is inconvenient or undesired). It can even lead people to engage in behavior they otherwise wouldn’t, once they know others are doing it.

So social proof can actually backfire completely and increase peoples bad behaviour because they have proof that lots of others also engage in the behaviour.

If we say people are surrendering because of the economy, voila! People will dump their pets citing the economy as their reason;

Australia’s animal welfare agency, the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals (RSPCA), said “can’t afford it” was now the fourth most cited reason for people dropping off pets at the shelter, up from number 8 last year. ref

Avoiding negative social proof

Copyblogger offers these tips for avoiding negative social proof.

1. Focus on the desired action, not the action you want people to avoid.
   ‘Rescues say; book your boarding kennel now‘, not ‘Pets flood shelters as kennels fill‘




2. Reframe negative social proof to highlight those who are on board rather than those who are not.
   ‘Dog training schools a haven for happy pets‘ not, ‘Most Australians lazy; untrained pets rife‘




3. Characterize the undesirable action as isolated, out of touch, uncool, aberrant, etc.
   (isolating and stigmatizing) The Bogan Breeder phenomenon

Understanding that people need other people’s approval to feel they’re making the right decision will go a long way to using language that supports this process. We can change the community by harnessing the power of social proof, but we must ensure that we focus on the positive behaviour we’re trying to promote and choose what we say carefully so our message has only the desired effect.

Here’s a little trick I want you to try.

Walk into your next team project meeting and say to everyone there;

“Fuck you lot. By my calculations you’re not only ignorant, but determined to see us fail. From now on you’re not getting a say – I’ll be telling you exactly how to work and if you don’t like it then too bad.”

Next, try and get your team to work with you to achieve something great.

You wouldn’t do this obviously, because that would be insane. Whether leading a group or just an active participant, when you throw your weight around and call the people you need to work with incompetent, you’re unlikely to inspire them to amazing things. Start with threats and shut down reasonable discussion and you’re on a fast track to a revolt, unlikely to get you where you hoped to go.

So why then, do council animal management departments so often use this exact approach when they interact with their communities? Rather than work with them to inspire, they take an adversarial approach that blames and berates.

Frankston Council is the latest offender. After limited success with the ‘very big stick’ approach, they’ve busted out the ‘incredibly big stick’, stomping all over both the feelings of the community’s pet owners and the rights of local vets to have final say when it comes to the medical procedures performed on their clients.

Frankston’s animal lovers are becoming increasingly concerned about council’s compulsory desexing of dogs.

Responsible dog owners say they are being caught up in a local law designed to decrease the unwanted puppy population.

Website chat rooms have been established to debate the issue and vet clinics have been receiving complaints from people forced to have a pup desexed against their will.

Frankston woman Noelene Lance said she was forced to have her miniature schnauzer, Ralph, desexed after he escaped from her yard.

“We were treated like people with a wild animal at large, rather than responsible people whose little puppy had got out through the fence,” Ms Lance said.

“He was only missing for minutes when we realised he’d gone and began searching.

“The pound told us we couldn’t have him back until we agreed to have him desexed.

“We pleaded with them and said we planned to have the operation done in a few months and even had our vet call, but it was either agree or lose Ralph.

“It was appalling. The whole thing, fines included, cost us $700.”

Dr Scott Tinson from Karingal Veterinary Clinic said compulsory desexing was now “an issue of concern” in the community. “My concern is that some are too young for this operation,” he said. “It isn’t ideal to do this on a pup under five months old.”

Dr Tinsen said council should have a good registration scheme backed up by promotion of responsible desexing at the appropriate time.

“We need more understanding and common sense from council.” (ref)

The result of Frankston’s policies was always going to be a breakdown in the relationship between council and community and bucket loads of bad feeling. When you take good pet owners and paint them bad. When you take away people’s rights to choose what is best for their furkid. When you use a sledgehammer when a flyswatter would do, you end up with the very people you need to help, turning against you. And that’s not good.

There are a dozen different ways to work with the community to get the result of a desexed pet. A simple violation could written which could be revoked if the pet was desexed in 30 days. Or, with the owner now on the radar, they could be given 30 days to comply with a desexing order, or to produce a letter from their vet stating otherwise. Council could even offer the pet desexing to the owners free of charge if the hurdle to compliance was cost.

Certainly a big stick approach of ’shut the fuck up’ can have an effect. But someone who complies with you belligerently, is not standing by hoping you’ll succeed. They’re not going out of their way to help and work with you. In fact they’re just waiting for you to stuff something up; then they’ll be the first in line to sing your failures from the rooftops. And if this is how your ‘good’ team members feel about you (the ones who should be on your biggest asset) just how big a stick are you gonna need?

Frankston better be able to prove their ‘toughest town in Victoria’ approach gets results. Hundreds of pet owners, having had their pet held to ransom under threat of death, will be watching their progress closely.

See also: More solutions from Calgary

Sawadee ka!

For those who follow my Twitter, you’ll know I’ve been away on honeymoon. My husband and I spent the last thirteen days exploring Thailand, mainly central and outer Bangkok, the former capital Ayuthaya and (of course) a few days by the pool in Phuket :)

Many domestic animals in Thailand, suburban and rural, are living on the streets. Sometimes right alongside their owners, sometimes without an owner at all.

I hope to put into words a few of the experiences I had whilst on holidays and the similarities and differences for pets in our respective countries.

So without further ado, my first post; ‘How to manage a cat ‘problem”…

……………………………………………………..

How to manage a cat ‘problem’

Street cat, Thailand (source)

Recently, free-roaming cats received mainstream media attention and government called for advice on the best way to control their numbers.

While the public largely cared for the welfare of the cats, offering them daily food, water and inviting them to remain near; animal welfare groups were rightly outraged at the numbers of cats killed by animal control each year. So cat welfare groups and government departments sat down together and created a plan.

First, the government passed laws which ordered that every single free-roaming cat should be caught and sent to local council agents for ‘disposal’. They cited that this would be in ‘the cat’s best interest’. However, with a free-roaming cat population of around half a million who, largely lived supported by people who gave them food and monitored their welfare, the idea that all of these animals should all be rounded up and killed could hardly be considered a humane approach.

Secondly, the government required that animal control agents be assigned to each region for the task of collecting free-roaming cats. Animal control in turn elevated their ability to impound cats, by offering the locals free cat traps, ignoring evidence that many of these trappers were ‘cat haters’ who simply drowned or suffocated trapped animals with car fumes, and often targeted owned cats in the neighbourhood.

Third, harboring a free-roaming cat was made an offence. Supporting a cat by providing food, water or shelter became illegal, with the threat of fines to those who persisted in caring for the animals. Despite the fact the culture of the community was that of compassion, the government mandated that people should take the cat they were caring for, and arrange its impoundment.

And finally, in an effort to change the public’s perception of free-roaming cats from that of respected animal to pest, a campaign was launched to paint them as dark, shadowy nuisances that should be removed. It also showed cat carers to be irresponsible and cruel. The campaign was given extensive radio, television and media exposure.

Cat family, Thailand (source)

The result was obvious. By changing the dynamic of society from one who cares for free-roaming cats, to one who targets them to be culled, the government forever altered the way the community acted towards these vulnerable animals.

Instances of animal abuse escalated and anti-cat sentiment increased. Cats were rounded up by the thousands by both government officials and trappers. Cat intake increases of up to 40% were reported, while animal welfare groups, already overloaded, were unable to handle the influx. Feral cats were almost universally culled, while overall, up to 80% of impounded cats were killed.

To appease anyone who objected to the idea of a bulk cull, discount cat desexings were offered (around 25% off full price); but even these were limited to the first 100 applicants, leaving the majority of cats and cat carers to fend for themselves.

Sleeping cat, Ayuthaya Thailand (source)

In short, this purported animal-loving community rapidly became one of the largest killer of companion animals per-capita in the world. And with such huge numbers of cats still reproducing unchecked, there is no end in sight for the killing.

Unfortunately, we Aussies aren’t as compassionate towards animals as the Thai’s. The campaign I’m describing, the one that should be considered as shameful for any part of the world, is taking place right now in Victoria, Australia.

The ‘Who’s for Cats’ campaign, run by the Victorian government, is slowly but surely turning regular people against free-roaming cats, increasing impoundments and encouraging killing in the face of alternatives. The Victorian government has implemented policies that have removed protection for these animals, leaving them open to persecution and abuse.

Victorian animal welfare groups who support ‘Who’s for Cats’ should take a good hard look at the future they are pushing towards. While a western, sanitised, all-pets-in-homes ambition might be laudable, to kill thousands of cats in the drive to get there, is in no way ethical, nor admirable.

We wouldn’t support another country in an effort to kill thousands of animals. We wouldn’t support another country in an effort to round up and kill every free-roaming cat simply for being unowned. We wouldn’t support them, because when they do it, we can see it makes no sense. So why do we accept the same approach here, when we claim not only to be more compassionate, but when our animal welfare groups are some of the wealthiest in the world?

Cats, the same the world over. People… not so much.