ACA this week, told the heartbreaking story of a show breeder of chihuahuas who lost five of his beloved animals, because a pack of often roaming staffies finally managed to get themselves into trouble.

They’d escaped through property fences plenty of times before but on the occasion in question last year, they bounded more than 500 metres through a suburb, to find their five tiny victims.

The large dogs broke into the breeders yard and killed the smaller dogs. The offending dogs are now at The Lost Dogs Home, while the owner fights the destruction order in the courts, which to date has cost over $20,000 in legal fees. The family has since got another staffy cross.

So, in conclusion; we have one thick as toast owner known to the suburb for letting his three large dogs roam, which eventually resulted in five miniature breed dogs being fatally injured. The offending dogs are now taking up space in The Lost Dogs Home impoundment yards, while the same owner waxes idiotic about ‘loving his pets’ and ties up the courts to the tune of $20k. Meanwhile the same moron simply gets another dog.

Surely this would be a great opportunity to examine the importance of responsible pet ownership in preventing injury to both animals and other people? A chance to really drive home why taking swift preventative measures against those people who refuse keep their dogs, of any breed, from harrasing the community is key to eliminating attacks. I mean, you can’t keep stupid people from keeping dogs, but you can ensure they keep them from roaming around, killing and maiming other people’s pets.

Well hell, why do THAT when you can do this…

KABLAMMO!

Graeme Smith trots out the same usual rot which sees dog owners who are genuinely doing something wrong (letting their staffy pack roam about until they kill someone), overlooked in favour of ‘KILLING ALL THE PIT BULLS’, which has never ever made any community one bit safer.

The Lost Dogs Home really, really need to retire Mr Smith and get someone in who can show genuine leadership, rather than blather the same old kill rhetoric that everyone else is rapidly moving away from, in favour of things that keep both pets and the community safe.

Read more: More solutions from Calgary
Aggressive animal incidents are almost non-existent in Calgary

Gotta love this…

The RSPCA found new homes for more Staffordshire bull terriers than any other type of dog last year.

The animal charity said it rehoused 507 of the 615 “staffies” and crosses it had taken into its 13 regional centres.

The high number needing new homes was in part down to their popularity with irresponsible owners “more interested in their own image”, it said.

‘Brilliant companions’

The welfare charity, which is marking RSPCA Week, said despite the negative image of Staffies as “status dogs” they can make fantastic pets.

A new RSPCA website – www.gettoknowadog.co.uk – launched today and aims to help people find out more about adopting a Staffie.

I’ve been blogging for a little over two years now and one of the biggest hurdles I’ve found to strategic thought about animal welfare in Australia, is a lack of available data.

It’s not an enormous ask in the technology age; pets are registered and microchipped, incoming stray pets are recorded in computer databases, and animal welfare groups taking on various council pound contracts would keep data on incoming and outgoing pets to use for tendering and performance reports. And yet most of the data I’ve used on Saving Pets has been captured from media slips, given out in unrelated council reports, or leaked.

So why is it so hard to get information on the situation of pets in Australia? Why wouldn’t we want the public to have good data?

The truth has a lot to do with ’strange beliefs’ as explained by Michael Shermer in this video;

Bad science is absolutely rife in animal welfare and I personally see the No Kill movement as the effort to replace bad ideas, unproven ideas and ideas based on bias; with good scientifically considered initiatives.

First, as mentioned in the video, in science we have to keep track of the misses as well as the hits. We absolutely have to have the data of how many pets die in a shelter each year, to be able to compare what that shelter does with their peers. You can’t tell what’s really working (or not) without being able to see what variations led to that result.

Unfortunately, there is a resistance to this from everyone involved in the process. Councils won’t release the data because they don’t want a kick back from their residents should they not measure up. Groups who’ve taken over pound contracts don’t want this information to be made public, in case they lose the tender, or support from donors. So they go to great lengths keep all of this data away from the public domain.

Instead of data, they present simply a theory; ‘people are irresponsible, and we kill pets because homes can’t be found for them all’.

But we be asking for proof of this theory. Opinion is not science. A case study doesn’t equal an explanation. And without a balance between data and theory, there is no way we can get close to solving the issue. We’re just chasing strawmen.

So, why haven’t the animal welfare industry, who’ve been so vocal and effective in lobbying for laws effecting pet ownership in Australia (like mandatory desexing) taken a stand and demanded data from any group or council working with these animals? You know, the kind of action that would allow the development of a scientific approach to the issue?

The answer is cognitive bias

When we hear something that fits within our personal beliefs, we have no reason to ask for more data.

What’s more, if we hear something that agrees with our beliefs and then someone else asks for more proof, we will stand and defend ‘our’ theory against them. Even when they’re just asking for the proof, we maybe should have asked for ourselves.

Working in rescue, our cognitive bias is usually towards the idea that people are crap. We don’t get the perspective that comes from seeing hundreds of thousands of pets living in loving homes, we don’t get the distance that comes with looking at statistics, rather than real life animals. So it’s not only easy to believe the theory presented to us in replacement for good council data, we defend it.

The theory that ‘people are irresponsible’ is nowhere near a comprehensive enough to build good policy for pet ownership, nor does it take into account the variation of the performance of individual councils. And yet we defend it as the problem with pets in Australia.

The theory that ‘we kill pets, because homes can’t be found for them all’ ignores everything we know about the unattractiveness of pounds to adopters, the nature and numbers of people looking to acquire a pet and adopt and the lack of modern marketing techniques. And yet we defend it as the reason pounds kill.

The people who have control of councils, are the people we need to change. And we begin that change by demanding that they give us the true scientific data regarding the outcomes pets in their shelters, rather than defend them blindly, in their theories that they are simply doing an irresponsible public’s dirty work.

There is no other industry in the world, which disses its own product. At least not any successful ones. Which is why we have to give up once and for all, campaigns based on how abused our pets are.

Certainly, stories of abuse can be attractive to the fundraising department; they activate people’s compassion and cause them to react, often by opening their wallets. But abuse based campaigns run contrary to our aims to show people that rescue animals are in fact, great family pets. You can’t tell people that the pets you care for have been ‘abused’ on the one hand, but that they should open their homes to one, on the other. ‘Abuse’ in people’s minds is synonymous with behavioural problems and aggression – things most adopters aren’t looking for in their new animal.

The new ‘Second Chances’ campaign from the RSPCA Victoria does an absolutely fantastic job at confirming the public’s suspicions that pets at the RSPCA are faulty.

Every year, thousands of stray, neglected and abused animals arrive at our Victorian shelters in desperate need of a second chance at life.

While rescue groups around the country are working hard to promote the benefits of animal adoption, the RSPCA Victoria have chosen to instead further the myth that shelter pets are damaged. This mixed message of ‘abuse’ and ‘adoption’ is especially disastrous taking place in Victoria, as shelters have just 28 days to find a pet a home before they are legally required to kill it. Adoption is a pet’s only hope.

This emotive approach may be good for raising cash, but it also dooms thousands of pets to death, as people looking for a nice, family pet bypass rescue as an option. If the nicest thing we can say about our pets is that they are the castaways of a cruel society, what motivation does the public have to consider a rescue?

Seth Godin’s book Linchpin changed my life.

He has riffed out pretty much the whole lot and given it away free. No, not just given it away, asks people to share it.

So I can’t recommend this highly enough.

The April Linchpin Session (click)

Bramption (US), home of Brittany and Rambo two dogs who were seized from their owner for being ‘pit bulls’, and who after 3 months and $20,000 worth of legal fees were release because they weren’t, has been using the same approach to pit bull management, that is gaining so much momentum here in Oz.

An article today, shows exactly what that means. And it’s like looking into a horrifying crystal ball…

The statistics show over those five years, more than half of those dogs— 56 per cent— were seized in 2009. That’s a 138 per cent increase compared to the eight seizures of “illegal” pitbulls in 2008.

But that’s ok, right? I bet most of these dogs were those ‘American Staffies’ and I don’t own an American Staffy or a pit bull, so my dog is safe.

Only two of the dogs deemed to be illegal were American Staffordshire terriers. All the rest were mixed breeds, which are covered under both the provincial Dog Owners Liability Act (DOLA) and the city’s own dog bylaw. Both define a pitbull as a pitbull terrier, Staffordshire bull terrier, American Staffordshire bull terrier, American pitbull terrier, or “a dog that has an appearance and physical characteristics that are substantially similar to those dogs.”

So like, a bully, a staffy or something that looks like it? That sure describes an awful lot of dogs. Oh well, it’s obviously for the best. I bet their community is much safer.

Peel Health statistics show there has been no corresponding drop in reported dog bites in Brampton since the ban was put in place. The number of dog bites reported has remained steady over the last seven years, according to Paul Callanan, the region’s director of environmental health. In Brampton/Caledon there has been an average of 280 to 300 dog bites reported every year for the past seven, he said. The breeds of dog inflicting the bites is not information easily accessed, though, since the statistics are kept strictly for tracking rabies, Callanan said.

Oh dear. Well surely, this is just an isolated case. Other communities, who have had pit bull bans longer will have definintely ‘wiped them all out’ and be super dooper safe now!

From KC Dog Blog

Attempting to define the law purely in relation to breed has failed to protect the public.”

The Scotish Parliament today approved their new dangerous dog law they’ve been calling “dog Asbos” in a unanimous decision.  The new law gives councils greater power to impose penalties for owners of badly behaved dogs and will focus on “deed not breed”. The law would replace several laws dealing with dogs in the country, including the Dangerous Dogs Act, which bans four breeds of dogs in Scotland.

Dog Asbos was proposed by MSP Alex Neil. In his proposal, he notes that the Dangerous Dogs Act was “difficult ot enforce and a huge drain on resources.” “It is clear that a dog’s breed is only one factor which may affect its behavior. Attempting to define the law purely in relation to breed has failed to protect the public.”

The statistics support Neil. Over the past decade, Scotland has seen an over 150% increase in dog attacks.

Bill Reilly, President of the British Veterinary Association commented:

“The key message is that any dog can show aggression, particularly if it is not handled and trained properly, so legislation that provides the tools to target irresponsible ownership before it becomes a problem is very welcome. The rest of the UK should now look at Scotland and replace the failed breed-specific legislation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.”

The law is not yet final, but seems on pace to be soon. Great work by the folks in Scotland in listening to the professional experts in their community and making changes to a clearly failing law.

Breed ban = Fail.

Its a shame that as we’re still just in the infancy of these kinds of bans in Australia, that we’ll have to go through the process of wrestling with them, waste the enormous expense of enforcing and defending them, killing dogs who’ve done nothing wrong and traumatising the families who love them…. only to have it fail to make the community in any way safer.

Its a shame there’s no way to talk to people on the other side of the world to find out what their experience have been, rather than just make it up on the fly. When there are hundreds of examples of these kinds of bans not working all over the world, wouldn’t it be good if there was some easy way to, I don’t know, have them share their experiences, before we do the same thing? Over some kinds of internet, or I dunno telephone? If only the technology would allow. Shame.

First up, the blog post of the year;

Fighting the inevitable: The propaganda war against no-kill

People are not stupid; they understand the difference between “killing” and “euthanasia.” And the no-kill movement is not about what individual shelters do, but about a community-based effort to develop non-lethal animal population management practices nationwide. And it’s not a Utopian fantasy, it’s the reality right now in many communities, and that number is growing every year, because of the very love and commitment of people that you don’t believe in.

Go read it.

And once you’ve done that, why not settle on down on the couch for a video brain massage?

First up, we have Nathan Winograd – lawyer, director of the No-Kill Advocacy Centre and author of “Redemption: The myth of pet overpopulation and the No-Kill Revolution” – speaking with Steven from Hound TV…

Next, we have Nathan’s full presentation from the conference…

ACA last night ran a special on a neighbourhood of ‘missing cats’. There’s obviously someone in the area with a trap and upset owners have lost a dozen or more pets. While the story focuses on one street in Perth, they claim it is happening Australia wide.

In a related story, Victorian cat groups are facing growing anti-cat sentiment, in the ‘Who’s for Cats?’ state:

Greensborough Cat Protection Society director Dr Carole Webb said cats were often the target of cruelty but such extreme acts were rare.

“People either love cats or they hate them – if they hate them they almost think they have a right to do whatever they want,” she said.

“Cruelty like this is abhorrent, I think people who can do those sorts of things are psychologically disturbed.”

RSPCA spokesman Tim Pilgrim said the society investigated more than 1500 cases of cruelty to cats in Victoria last year, ranging from mistreatment to torture.

“Some of the most horrific cases the inspectorate dealt with last year were to do with cats,” Mr Pilgrim said.

What I can’t work out, is why any one is surprised. With cat protection groups around the country telling people an outdoors cat is diseased, fighting and killing wildlife, and every Council in Australia looking at some kind of cat curfew and giving out traps by the hundreds, did we really think unowned cats were going to be the only ones targeted by empowered, cat hating crazies?

Rockhampton cats to be registered
Rockhampton in Queensland unveils plans for a mandatory cat registration scheme, beginning 1st September, but they’re already rubbishing their community, with officers expecting that thousands of cat owners will fail to register despite the legislation. The adversarial approach of painting the community ‘irresponsible’ before you even begin, is certainly alive and well. Rest assured there are more laws to follow.

All hail the cat
And if this doesn’t show you cats are the future leaders of the world, I don’t know what does…

Then…

The most crucial step forward in protecting our pets and animals for 100 years
April 9, 2007

The Animal Welfare Act sets out new legal requirements that all pet owners must ensure five essential criteria are met.

It places emphasis on cruelty prevention, and gives RSPCA (UK) inspectors more powers to prevent animals suffering by taking action earlier.

Under the Act, animals will be removed from owners sooner if there is sufficient concern, before any prosecution is started.

Before this Act was brought in, animals could be taken away only once a prosecution had commenced.

And RSPCA (UK) officers will now be able to launch prosecution cases without the need for a vets report proving neglect.

The Act, which has been billed as one of the most important achievements in animal welfare for almost a century, also carries tougher penalties for offenders.

Offenders can be banned from owning animals and fined up to 20,000 pounds. Prison sentences of up to 51 weeks are also open to the courts.

……

Some of the requirements are:

Cats:

– Protect your cat from hazards while indoors and outdoors.

– Make sure your cat eats a balanced diet which is suitable for its needs.

– Make sure your cat is able to rest undisturbed when it wants to.

– While you are away, make sure your cat is being looked after by someone responsible.

– If you think your cat is in pain, ill or injured, contact a vet promptly and follow their advice regarding treatment.

Dogs:

– Provide your dog with somewhere it can go to avoid things that frighten it.

– Dogs should be able to reach food and water easily in all situations.

– Give your dog the exercise it needs, at least daily unless your vet recommends otherwise, to keep your dog fit, active and stimulated.

– Make sure that your dog is never left alone long enough for it to become distressed.

– You should carefully check your dog’s coat regularly and groom your dog, if necessary, to maintain a healthy coat.

Now…

We haven’t got the cash to take any more strays says RSPCA (UK)
21st April 2010

The RSPCA (UK) is to turn away tens of thousands of unwanted and stray pets from its animal shelters to cut costs, it emerged yesterday. The charity said it would focus more on caring for animals seized from owners after being cruelly treated.

The move could affect up to 75,000 cats and dogs which are taken to its centres every year. One consequence will be to put pressure on other animal charities, local councils and police. And it could also lead to more unwanted animals being destroyed. Soaring numbers of abandoned animals in the last year have contributed to growing pressure on the charity’s finances. Donations from the public have also fallen because of the recession.

Yesterday the RSPCA (UK) defended its new rules, which will be introduced at 17 national animal centres in England and Wales, and said it wanted to make owners take more responsibility for their pets. ‘Our highest priority is to look after the animals that most need help, the pets and other animals rescued by our inspectors from cruelty and neglect,’ a spokesman said. ‘That is the RSPCA’s (UK) core aim and that has not changed.’

From next month, pets belonging to people taken to hospital, evicted from their homes or who are unable to cope with them will not be allowed to be left at the RSPCA (UK) centres. Owners will be told to contact the police, the local council or another charity. (ref)

The RSPCA (UK) is Britain’s eighth largest charity, with an income of £119 million in 2008. The move comes as the organisation is making savings of £54 million over three years, with donations falling due to the recession. In recent years it has expanded its role as the unofficial animal police, bringing criminal cases against owners for cruelty and neglect.

The charity investigated 140,575 cases in 2008, up from 110,841 three years earlier. It spent £11.1 million on prosecutions in 2008, compared with £7 million in 2007. The rise is in part the result of the Animal Welfare Act, which came into effect in 2007 and which was strongly supported by the RSPCA (UK), which introduced new offences of failures in animal welfare, rather than just cruelty. (ref)

I’m sure it’s just a coinkidink that putting lots of effort into targeting pet owners over dozens of new pet care infractions, giving inspectors expanded rights to impound pets and a bunch of tougher fines, has happened at the same time as huge increases in impoundments and a decrease in donations from pet lovers.

A coinkidink I tells ya.

Australian’s have a very unique relationship with the law. Anyone whose travelled overseas, where there is often a ‘if you don’t bother me, I won’t bother you’ ideology, will have noticed the Aussie preference to legislate against every possibility. When someone presents yet another law addressing yet another issue, it’s the Australian way to think more is better. A law to right some wrong can’t be a bad thing, right?

But you only have to watch an evening current affairs show to see the conflict this brings in our personal lives. We demand more enforcement of road rules and higher penalties for people who drive dangerously, but think that a speed camera on our street is simply revenue raising. We call for police sweeps of nightclub areas and tough action against street drinkers, but feel wronged if we can’t have a beer on the foreshore on Australia Day, or get busted at a family park barbecue. We want strict laws against dog owners who in our eyes seem to be doing the ‘wrong thing’, but get huffy when they start to encroach on our right to have our dogs in public places or when our local off-leash park becomes leashed only.

We imagine that laws will only target the bad people. That laws are only designed to get the bad people who might hurt us now or in the future. And as we know that we’re not bad people we don’t think for a moment laws targeting bad people will effect us personally. The truth is that they undeniably do.

Every single advocacy group lobbying for every single kind of law in Australia has one thing in common. We all think ‘our’ chosen law is more pure, more worthy and more necessary than all the others. Unfortunately, the usual result of these well-intentioned drives is just another sporadically enforced piece of legislation that does little to improve the situation for anyone involved.

I’ve often blogged about the Calgary model, because I just think these guys have it so, so right. Rather than look to create extensive legislation targeting owners and building resentment in the community when good owners find themselves effected by some unrealised side effect of the law’s implementation, they have partnered with their community to realise voluntary compliance in responsible pet ownership.

Key to Calgary’s success

• no – mandatory spay/neuter
• no – breed specific legislation
• no – pet limit laws
• no – anti-tethering laws
• yes – providing valued services rather than simply punishing citizens into compliance
• yes – buy in and cooperation among community stakeholders thanks to an animal control director who is a professional mediator
• yes – extensive education and PR campaign to emphasize responsible pet ownership
• yes – low license fees and modest fee differential for intact pets

Bill Bruce, as the Director of Animal Services and Bylaws in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, took over a struggling program. He has had remarkable success, developing a program which now boasts a licensing compliance rate for dogs of 91%, a return to owner rate of 85% and a euthanasia rate of only 6%. A newly implemented licensing program for cats already has a licensing compliance rate of 54%, a return to owner rate of 56% and only an 18% euthanasia rate. A majority of those animals being humanely destroyed are for behavioral issues and poor health or injuries. Aggressive animal incidents are almost non-existent. With a population base of over 1 million people, those are staggering statistics. In addition, Calgary has no limit laws, no breed specific laws, no mandatory spay/neuter ordinances and no interference from animals rights groups.

Calgary’s phenomenal success depends on a sense of trust among pet owners that they will be treated fairly by and obtain good services from Calgary Animal Services. Trust makes for unprecedented high licensing compliance. High licensing compliance means that the taxpayers do not foot the bill for animal services, and it means that nearly all stray pets are quickly reunited with their owners which saves lives and keeps costs low.

There is no way to achieve this kind of licensing compliance in an environment where citizens feel they must hide their dogs and cats from pet limit laws, BSL, crushing differential licensing fees, or mandatory spay/neuter laws. Without the high licensing compliance, none of the rest of the success could have happened. – ‘Save our Dogs: Successes’

Calgary’s experience shows what happens when the community is engaged as a stakeholder on community safety and animal welfare. Reactionary laws, which treat the public as a enemy that needs to be coerced and punished simply build barriers between shelters and the very community they need to help them achieve their No Kill goals.