Animal welfare groups in Queensland were today celebrating Gold Coast City Council’s rollout of their breeder permit scheme.

It even got an editorial from the Gold Coast Bulletin;

The move to introduce the desexing of cats and dogs on the Gold Coast ‘by stealth’ is a law to be applauded.

Critics of the Gold Coast City Council’s proposed change to require pet owners to have a licence to breed from their animals say it is a sneaky way to introduce mandatory desexing and that it will mean more costs. So be it.

The sad fact is that each year hundreds of unwanted cats and dogs are put down on the Coast — last year more than 1400 were destroyed.

So while the council has given in, to pressure of animal welfare groups who have determined that an animal with reproductive organs is a threat worthy of the strongest legislative direction;

We commend the Gold Coast City Council on this initiative and trust that once passed, the policing of the law’s requirements will be carried out with vigilance.

This law will be a toothless tiger without those who flaunt it being prosecuted.

What are the facts behind the emotion?

According to the latest available figures, the Gold Coast City Council has 55,000 registered cats and 55,000 registered dogs. That’s 110,000 owned pets.

The “1,400 pets destroyed” quoted in the editorial is just 1.2% of the pet population being killed in shelters. In a state where ‘pit bulls’ can’t be rehomed. And feral cats can’t be released.

Will this expensive initiative (how expensive? well the 2008 trial cost $380,000), bring down this number? Likely not much.

But it will certainly allow the Gold Coast Council more powers to seize the pets of disadvantaged owners if they can’t afford desexing, and the unrestricted ability to seize unowned and semi-owned cats… driving up intakes and shelter killing…

…. hang on…

See also: Should there be a ‘breeder permit’ system?

See also: Gold Coast City Council drives Australia’s largest dog cull

… in a lovely visual format. Almost makes you forget for a moment, that the graphs are showing the end of almost 100,000 lives.

Our priority, as the leading animal welfare organisation in the country, is to ensure that we provide stray and abandoned cats with the highest level of care (ref).

As you can see, after the ‘Cats Home’ opening, which will:

Double the number of cats and kittens we can care for and most importantly possibly even triple the number of cats and kittens we are able to adopt out to loving new homes.

Intakes will spike (from around 11,000 now, to around 20,000) but adoption increases only see the number homed improve by 1,000 – 1,500.

I will update these graphs as more statistics become available.

A follow on from my piece earlier in the week, which explains the difference between what mandatory desexing advocates say it will do, and what is actually does – some examples where it not only doesn’t help cats, but actually impedes programs that would;

Taking the food right out of their mouths

The crew from Mr Fishy* cat food are a bunch of genuine cat lovers. Their young team really liked the idea of the ‘Secret Cat’ campaign; the fact it is positive and trying to sexy up free-roaming cats, rather than paint them as a pest.

They approached us to see if they could donate free food to Secret Cat carers, or if there was any way they could support an initiative that helped these cats somehow. The alignment was perfect, as I would hazard a guess that 95% of Secret Cats are already being fed Mr Fishy cat food. Except…

As I blogged earlier in the week, cat groups are lobbying hard for mandatory desexing, but rather than be implemented how they say it will; by making irresponsible people desex their cats, it’s actually enacted like this; by making it impossible to register an undesexed cat.

But what does this have to do with cat food donations?

Anyone who’s worked with a large corporate entity will know, they must have all their legal i’s dotted and t’s crossed. What the groups lobbying for mandatory desexing don’t mention, is that while it’s quite easy to get a council to bring in a law that allows them more powers to round up and kill stray animals (after all, they’ve been doing it since local government was invented), we’re still decades away from having exclusions brought in for free-roaming cats. Years of telling people they’re vermin, can’t be changed overnight.

If you’ve implemented mandatory desexing, then each cat has to be registered by three or six months old. In the case of Secret Cats, that’s not likely to happen. Colony or community cats, even if desexed, generally aren’t owned by one person so aren’t registered. So anyone who cares for them effectively breaks the law. This cat food company could not sponsor something illegal, so their support which could have done so much good to the semi-owned cats of Australia, is unavailable.

Blocking desexing programs

There are community groups offering programs doing cost effective, outreach desexing. One recently receiving attention was the Cats Assistance To Sterilise (CATS) program in Mitcham, South Australia, which put forward an alternative motion to the Council’s $252,000 dollar cat control campaign that require all cats in the shire be registered:

Ms Weaver also proposed an alternate solution – a two-year trial program in association with a community group, Cats Assistance To Sterilise (CATS), which would see subsidised or free desexing at no cost to the council.

“Ninety-five per cent of the prolem is desexing… the bylaw does not address desxing. Here we have an organisation working with 12 of the 18 metro councils successfully, desexing cats for very little cost.” Ms Weaver said. “Burnside, Unley, Norwood Payneham & St Peters all support it.

CATS president Christine Pierson said the council was making a huge mistake with the bylaw.

“The council has totally ignored the scientific fact that have been presented that the bylaw will not reduce cat numbers and will not reduce cat-related problems,” she said.

Unfortunately, CATS, who were already working out the community saving lives through targeted desexing are now facing the same problem that everyone in the country is facing, thanks to the animal welfare groups driving these laws:

If a cat doesn’t have an owner and you desex and release it, you are breaking the law.

You can’t feed, care for, shelter, desex or provide medical care for a cat without an owner, in a council area with mandatory registration. Because the minute you show an animal any care at all, under these laws it’s your animal. If you then don’t register it, or you release it then you’ve ‘abandoned’ it. If you’re unlucky you could be prosecuted. If you’re ‘lucky’, they’ll simply seize the cat and kill it.

This is the simple reason why there aren’t hundreds of privately sponsored desexing vans crossing the country desexing cats. I know this because I’ve worked to try and get two of them off the ground and even if they’re up and running, they’re doing so in a legal limbo; working knowing full well it’s not 100 percent legit. Which makes getting private sponsorship (ala Mr Fishy*, with hundreds of thousands of dollars they’d be willing to hand over for simple splash signage on the side of the van) nearly impossible.

Why we know this isn’t about ’saving lives’

When I asked my Twitter feed “What are mandatory desexing advocates lobbying for really?”

I got back this reply: “Much less euthanasia”

Which is wrong.

If this was really about “much less euthanasia”, these groups would be lobbying for:

- Free and low cost community desexing clinics
If Mitcham can spend $252,000 on a five year cat registration program, in a City with just over 60,000 residents, imagine what they could have done if they’d instead taken the $4 from every single tax payer and sunk it into a cat desexing program.

- Protection from impoundment, for community cats
A cat welfare group, should by definition, be lobbying for things that improve cat welfare. Laws which target semi-owned and feral cats for impoundment, when you know full well cats that aren’t human friendly are nearly always killed, is not in any way improving their welfare. Dead is not better than free-roaming. We don’t suggest for one moment a possum is better off dead than living outside, so why would cats deserve any less respect?

- Protection from prosecution for community cat carers
Someone who feeds and cares for a community cat, makes that cats life better. Why would you then punish that person? A law which demands every cat is registered, puts community cat carers at risk. It stifles community cat desexing programs and makes free-roaming cats a target for impoundment. Demanding people surrender their community cat does not lead to less euthanasia.

If this were really about reducing euthanasia; then mandatory desexing advocates themselves would be out in the community, desexing as many cats as they can and asking the government to support them. They would be building desexing vans to help cat carers and low income families. They would be asking people to desex their community cat and keep caring for them, rather than impounding it. And they would be lobbying government to protect these cats from harm.

What they are actually doing is spittle-spewing, rather than helping. Criticising, rather than supporting and killing rather than doing those things that could stop it.

Mandatory desexing is simply a lazy way to look like they care for cat welfare, not about reducing killing.

*Not their real name.

I just love the targetedness of this. The Pennsylvania SPCA held an adoption event of 120 largely heavily muscled breeds, in which ‘pit bull mixes’ figured prominently. Rather than just say ‘no one wants them’, they’ve worked out what appeals to the kind of adopter they’re looking for, and come up with a campaign designed to attract them.

Got a bucketload of bullies to adopt out? Hold a ‘garage sale’!

The Pennsylvania SPCA called it a “garage sale.”

In open garages at the society’s headquarters in North Philadelphia, about 120 dogs of all ages, sizes, and colors stared up from crates as prospective owners browsed.

There were German shepherds, rottweilers, pit bulls, and mixed breeds, all barking for attention.

The event started Saturday and continues from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday and from 1 to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday at the SPCA, in the 300 block of East Erie Avenue.

Scores of people had turned out and claimed at least 20 dogs by late Saturday afternoon, taking advantage of discounted adoption fees and chances to receive the pets for free. Ten other dogs were taken in by rescue organizations, which will try to place them with families.

“But there are many more dogs that need new homes,” Pennsylvania SPCA spokeswoman Liz Williamson said. “We’re hopeful the public will provide loving homes to dogs that need a second chance.

“Our promotion will continue until all of them are out of temporary housing” in the garage.

On Saturday, SPCA volunteers put bright “Adopt Me” vests on some dogs and walked them so visitors could get acquainted.

Love it!

It’s easy to get caught in the hype of mandatory desexing; what we’ll do is bring in a law, that will make all the irresponsible owners desex their cats, and volia! problem solved.

And it seems like a good deal. Even falling within how laws should be designed. Cultural change takes place (eg. we all decide that driving fast is bad thing) and then we bring in a law that means you have to comply, to pick up the stragglers who won’t do it voluntarily (slow down, or we’ll take your licence).

But the difference with cats is this. It’s not like when you threaten to take someone’s licence and cause major inconvenience to their lifestyle. If you are targeting a person who obviously doesn’t care about the welfare of their cat, what are you going to threaten them with? Taking their cat? Here, have it. Fining them? I’ve never seen that cat before in my life, take it.

So what you’re really lobbying for isn’t making all the irresponsible owners desex their cats, but taking the cats off anyone who can’t, or won’t desex them.

And running contrary to claim of offering the community less killing, driving up intakes.

But the law, in truth, isn’t enacted that way. Short of lifting the tail of every tom and peering in the ear of every puss, there is no way to check the desexed status of even a small perentage of the cat population – the man power is simply too enormous. So this is what they do.

They make it so you can’t register an undesexed cat.

And all those people who don’t really care to desex their cat, really couldn’t care less whether it’s registered either. Which, as you can imagine works well to do absolutely nothing at all.

But it’s not all good news. There are some that do get effected by this legislation;

Poor people. A law which directs you to do something you can’t afford, doesn’t help you afford it. So their cats are targeted.

The cats of people who don’t care. They definitely get caught in this legislation. Without an owner who protects them, they’re impounded by neighbours, animal control or simply handed over when the legislation is enacted.

And cats without owners. No one cares about them and they fall under the catergory ‘vermin’ in most Australian legislation.

So rather than:
Mandatory legislation that makes irresponsible people desex their cats.

What we’re really advocating for is:
Mandatory desexing that makes irresponsible owners do nothing at all, impounds poor people’s cats and makes unowned cats a target for removal.

Just a reminder, that the groups advocating for this are working in cat protection.

Irony alert.

Thirteen year old Royce, the dog that had lived without incident with his owner until Blacktown Animal Control Officers deemed him to be a ‘pit bull’ and seized him, has been returned home!

“I’m ecstatic; I just felt elation when told I could take him home,” Mr Coulter said.

“He’s my best friend; the only one happy to see me every day.”

Royce, a 13-year-old mastiff-cross, was seized by Blacktown pound officers who said he was a pit bull and therefore a dangerous dog.

However, Mr Coulter said Royce was not a pit bull, nor had he ever attacked anyone or another animal.

Blacktown councillor and veterinarian, Russ Dickens, said he had treated the dog for years and had never heard any complaints about him.

Mr Coulter also said he was told he had to build a backyard enclosure for Royce, which he said cost him a great deal of money.

But last week he had his dog professionally assessed for its breed.

“She [the assessor] said Royce was half mastiff and half ridgeback,” he said.

He said the pound then allowed him to take Royce home and wished them well.

Mr Coulter said he was happy to have his dog home, but unhappy about what had happened to him.

Mr Coulter said he was worried the same thing could happen to another dog owner.

Cr Dickens has asked Blacktown Council officers for an explanation of the affair.

The Sun contacted Blacktown Council for comment, but it could not reply in time for publication. (ref)

If you’re someone standing by, ignoring breed specific legislation and thinking it will only effect ‘those awful bad people with the bad dogs’ think of Jock and Royce. More often than not, those caught in this legislation are simply people unlucky enough to own a dog with a blocky head.

With most organisations now recognising that social media is vital, a new animal welfare related Facebook page or Twitter account is appearing daily. But not all groups have the same levels of success. What makes a group become a viral phenomenon? And what makes it all go wrong?

Thinking of starting a two way conversation with your public? Then check out these case studies to help make your own steps into social media graceful, rather than painful.

Thriving

Pets Haven
A grassroots organisation, feeling the love

Pets Haven in Victoria has found an enormous boon in their Facebook page, growing from a few hundred members to over 7,500 in less than a year.

The secret to their success? Constant and personal update about the pets entering the care of the group. By keeping it very real and very genuine through hastily shot action pics and heartfelt commentary, and allowing supporters to track both their successes and their failures, they’ve created an online soapie for pet lovers that is both as addictive as it is bittersweet.

More than 2,000 photos have been posted to the page by the group and its supporters, along with adoptable animal videos, events and topical advocacy. There is a whole lotta love being shown for the work of Pets Haven.

AWL QLD
Big but not bureaucratic, opening the doors to the public bringing huge rewards

One of the most effective ‘tweeters’ on the web, the AWL QLD has developed an army of followers on Twitter and Facebook which allow it to achieve such remarkable results as 84 pets rehomed on the Easter weekend and huge promotions throughout the year focusing on traditionally ‘hard to place’ pets like adult cats.

By tapping into people’s love of animals and taking a witty, upbeat approach to their promotions (check out this Australia Day promo and this deaf dally) they have created a true fan club rooting for their success.

PIAS Australia
Cementing themselves as a knowledge base

With such excellent daily tidbits as “56% of women and 41% of men say their pet is more affectionate than their partner”, the ‘drip, drip, drip’ approach of PIAS Australia’s twitter feed ensures that followers are entertained, but not bombarded. Showing that you can’t build a community overnight, but that you have to love it a little every day, this twitter feed also generously contributes to the success of other organisations by showcasing their pet friendly initiatives. Sing with me – You’ve got to give a little love, take a little love…

Australia Says No to Puppy Farms
People care

This is one of PetRescue’s projects, but the success of this page has left us all astounded. With over 8,500 members and an active contributing base, it supports the Seth Godin notion that the most impassioned tribes are those advocating for change.

I also think the title ‘Australia Says No to Puppy Farms‘ is key to the success of this group. Remember bumper stickers? It’s what everybody had before Facebook. Bumper stickers stood for something; ‘vegans make better lovers‘, ‘save the whale‘, even the ‘Jesus fish’ all say something about the car’s owner. When naming your Facebook group, expand beyond the name of your organisation (which is all about you) and look at what unites your supporters. Make it all about them.

Struggling

Pets Paradise
When transparency is your enemy, best stay off the interwebs

When an organisation starts astroturfing, the ‘pants down’ honesty of social media can be disastrous. Pets Paradise, the largest seller of pet shop puppies in Australia, created a Christmas campaign purporting to support rescue pets. Except that rescue groups reacted badly to them using rescue’s ‘halo’ for their own promotions. This was followed up by an equally phony donation drive to support a sick puppy being sold by a PP store. Again, rescue groups were outraged that this $80 million dollar corporation were using rescue group techniques to elicit sympathy, and the business’ Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hallam-Australia/Pets-Paradise/22200944937) was targeted. It was taken down last month.

The lesson for this business was simple; when you don’t want people to talk about your business practices, social media isn’t for you. Unless you’re willing to accept criticisms openly and take the time to explain the reasons for your actions, then people will rapidly become incited by you lack of transparency.

The Lost Dogs Home
Accountability’s a bitch

After years of holding back its statistics from the public, the Lost Dogs Home was finally pressured into formally releasing them when the results from council data collection exercise was released to the media. The online community began criticising the operating procedures of the organisation, who responded by denying responsibility, limiting access to the shelter and closing open membership to their facebook page.

By going to ground, rather than addressing people’s concerns openly, they guaranteed that the conversation would go nuclear. Websites, anti-LDH Facebook pages and blogs sprung up overnight, demonstrating that when your community turns, the worst response you can make is to try and quell dissent. If you don’t allow people to have a discussion with you, you almost certainly guarantee they will have a conversation about you.

Thriving and struggling

Because the RSPCA’s all operate independently of each other, some are going great, while others are bombing.

The RSPCA ACT excel; their Facebook page is professional and responsive, their web videos and e-newsletter are some of the best I’ve ever seen and they blog. Queensland is also doing good Facebooking (though their ‘pet of the week’ seems to have died) and their Twitter is appropriately pithy and relevant. The RSPCA SA has a locked Facebook page which is a automatic fail and the RSPCA WA’s page hasn’t been updated since August 09 and is covered in spam.

The future response to these inconsistencies will likely be a standardising the RSPCA social media policy and maybe reconciling the accounts into one corporately managed one, however the nature of social media actually calls for less restriction, not more. No one wants to talk to a corporation.

The ideal way to move this forward would be to allocate every person in the RSPCA organisation a Facebook identity (just like you would an email) and require that everyone participate. By blowing the lid off who can contribute, they could empower all in the organisation to speak to their communities.

And finally

In the spirit of walking the talk; follow me on Facebook here and Twitter here.

The Pet Industry Association of Australia has a problem keeping its CEO – from May 2008:

The PIAA also has a new CEO–Dr Joanne Sillince a vet who was previously a Board Member and former President of the Australian Veterinary Association–but also former EO of the Australian Chicken Growers Council in 2001 and CEO of the Australian Meat Processor Corporation later. She’s the third PIAA head in as many years and the 8th in the 15 years that organisation has been incorporated.

But Dr Joanne has also bounced. Today, the PIAA announced their newest boss:

The President of the Pet Industry Association of Australia (“PIAA”), Steve Austin, announced today that the Board has appointed Roger Perkins as Chief Executive of the PIAA.

Mr Austin said: “The board was delighted when Roger accepted the position. Roger, educated with Engineering and Master of Business Administration Degrees, has applied his business expertise at the helm of a number of significant enterprises. His most recent CEO role was with the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW and prior to that ran ANL Limited, the previously owned Australian Government shipping company.

When taking the reins of office he said: “As Chief Executive of the PIAA, I will continue to build a rigorous financial and management framework which supports our core programs of membership, training, conferences, education and government relationships.”

It’s not very surprising to see that they have again had to replace their top dog. I’m sure it’s no walk in the park to be the head of the major lobby group for live animal sales, puppy farmers and the primary defender of high volume dog production in Australia.

Check them out defending pet shop puppies sales in the recent ABC 7.30 Report into the industry.

And this gem will make you chuckle;

Pet shops do not buy from puppy mills because the pets are of poor quality and often not well, and that’s the last thing a pet shop owner wants at the window.
– PIAA CEO Dr Joanne Sillince.

Image from ACA/Banksia Park dog farm: PIAA member

Apart from the big storm a couple of weeks ago, yesterday was the first really cold, wet night. While Secret Cat has plastic box to sleep in, I’d been worried that it’s neither warm enough, nor weatherproof enough to keep her comfortable through winter.

So I’ve got her a dog kennel! Or is that a cat kennel?

I’ve blocked up most of the door and lined it with corrugated cardboard for warmth. Hopefully in a few days she’ll stop looking at it like it’s going to eat her and she’ll start sleeping in it.

And yes, she is getting a bit boombalada.

There’s lots of talk lately of licencing schemes for dog owners, to counter high numbers of ‘irresponsible owners’. The Lost Dogs Home recently introduced its own pilot pet ownership licencing scheme, while the RSPCA have been working to bring in ‘responsible dog ownership’ legislation in an effort to reduce the number of dogs abused and abandoned. And each and every week articles, like this one from WA, are published in local papers around the country:

Dumped – Dog owners shame

Dog owners are being urged to consider the consequences of abandoning their pets after new figures revealed about 1000 dogs a year were impounded in Stirling alone.

RSPCA spokesman Richard Barry said that the high rate of stray and abandoned dogs was disappointing.

“It’s of great concern to us that some dogs are simply abandoned for myriad reasons, ranging from a change in location through to a change in financial circumstances,” he said.

“One has to consider what their pet will go through once they have turned their back on it.”

He said a lack of desexing had a ‘tremendous influence’ on the high number of animals needing a home.

Stirling community development director Trevor Holland urged people to be committed to pet ownership before taking on the responsibility of owning a dog.

“Owning and caring for a pet comes with responsibilities, and these are for the duration of their lives, not just the holidays.”

And it sounds fair enough. The pounds are full and dogs are being euthanased so it’s a natural progression to start thinking that the public must be terrible and that they’re abandoning pets at enormous rates.

So, do the public really suck?

The article went on to present the following statistics:

2007
Total number of dogs impounded – 976
Reclaimed by owners – 596
Rehomed – 213
Killed – 167

2008
Total number of dogs impounded – 1015
Reclaimed by owners – 647
Rehomed – 190
Killed – 178

2009 (to October)
Total number of dogs impounded – 744
Reclaimed by owners – 500
Rehomed – 142
Killed – 102

Now, the City of Stirling has 84,000 people, and 17,000 registered dogs. They get, according to these statistics, around 1,000 dogs impounded each year. That’s about 5% of the total dog population.

So 95% of owned dogs live in their homes, without needing to go to the shelter.

That’s not terrible – that’s freaking fantastic!! And is it possible to improve on this? Probably not much.

In the shire each year around 600 dogs are collected by the owners (lost dogs) and of the 400 left, about 200 are rehomed and about 200 are killed.

Now just think about that for a second. They kill 200, save 200. They kill one for every one they save. That’s a 50% fail rate!

If I ran a business that made cakes and I failed to sell every second one; I’d go out of business.

If I was a teacher and every second child I taught couldn’t read; I’d (hopefully) get the sack.

If I was a fireman and every second fire burnt the building to the ground; my manager would be examining whether we had enough training, enough skills or whether other fire stations were doing any better.

You get the idea. Meanwhile pounds fail one in every two times, throw their hands up in the air and go ‘our public sucks – whattaya gonna do?’

And not much changes.

But there’s not enough homes!

Well, lets look at it. If a dog lives an average 10 years, and assuming most people replace a dog within a few months of it passing:

Stirling’s population 17,000 dogs with 10% dying each year means there are approximately 1,700 new homes becoming available each and every year.

Stirling have just 400 dogs each year to rehome, there’s more than 4 times more homes available, than dogs they need to place. Not counting new homes or moving outside of their shire.

So they only need to convince one in every four people actively looking for a new dog, to adopt. Or another way, they need to complete just two adoptions a day. And it doesn’t need to be just adoptions; it can be handing them over to rescue, or networking with other Shires to ’swap’ animals, or just handing them over the local pet shop. Anything but killing them.

These guys are open for 3.5hrs weekdays, while potential adopters are at work (2.00pm – 5.30pm), and they’re open for 1hr on weekends. So, they offer working families, exactly 2 hrs per week to adopt.

Imagine if a pet shop was open these hours. And located in an industrial area. Would we be shocked if it didn’t have any customers? Not very.

The myth that owners are to blame

There is an awful lot of good to comment on about Stirling Council. They work with local rescue groups, have a volunteer program and they put their lost dogs on the web. And they made their annual figures available. But they’re still trapped in that blame culture which looks to punish the community for the number of pets killed in the shelter, rather than examining whether it needs to happen at all.

The scary thing is, if you do this with nearly any shire pound in Australia, you’ll find a similar story. They’ll say ‘we’re swamped; there’s so many irresponsible people in our area’ but then when you look at their intakes, they’re some tiny, insignificant number of the overall dog population. And the number of pets they do manage to save is tragically small.

While we’re often keen to get on board legislative solutions that target the public, targeting the community, who is overwhelmingly responsible and compliant, is both insulting and futile. Meanwhile, even in the face of incredibly high kill rates, we’re reluctant to cast a similar critical approach to the operating procedures of pounds in this country.

If we ever want to see a reduction in shelter pet killing, we must start calling these councils on their lack of performance; and they need to stop blaming pet owners for the killing and start taking those steps necessary to stop it.