Image: Labhlakshmi.com

Each spring and summer across the country, thousands of cats and kittens enter a shelter system that is already overloaded. To avoid having to kill the majority of these animals, there are things shelters can be doing in the months leading up to this busy season.

Here’s a plan that any shelter could use leading up to cat season to manage their shelter’s summer rush;

Right now (2 months out)

Recognise that it doesn’t help to blame your community

Condemning the public for a kitten rush that happens every year is both futile and largely inaccurate. Owned cats are largely desexed and free-roaming cats will breed whether you put hateful pieces of media out or not. Calling it ‘dumping season’ and your public ‘irresponsible’ builds barriers between you and your community (think ‘Barbara’ from the ANZ ads!).

From now on your organisation will demonstrate its commitment to helping save cats and all media and communications should focus, not on attributing blame, but attracting people to interact with your organisation through positive and heartwarming stories.

Get your Facebook group dusted off

Do you have a Facebook group up and running? Now’s the time to start a conversation with your public; you need them to help you through this time.

Your first article is to call for Foster Carers (there’s a sample article here). You’re going to need lots to care for all the mums and bubs you’re expecting. From now on you need to share a story daily with your Facebook fans; something funny that happened in the office. A cat with a particularly cute name. A photo of an adopter just as they leave you smiling happily. Brainstorm potential topics at your next staff meeting and write them down for inspiration.

Get a photographer

Photos like this:

… will not get your cats adopted. You have to get a professional or a good amateur photographer to visit your shelter most days and get photos of your cats that are like this;

Images Best Friends Animal Society

See how they’re focused on the face? You’ll want to get the images of cats eyes and faces to engage potential adopters.

If your photographers are willing, give them access to upload your cats directly to the web, via your own website, Facebook or PetRescue. Give them the basic details for each cat, then have a staff member go in to add any extra information. This removes the double handling of the photographer sending you the images and you having to work it all out.

The more pets you can adopt now through cute pictures and positive profile on the web, the more capacity will be available when the rush starts in earnest.

Have a PetRescue account

While having your own website is important for raising awareness of the work of your organisation, having your individual cats on PetRescue (www.petrescue.com.au) is vital if you need to adopt large numbers of animals.

PetRescue recieves 3.16 million page views from over 200,000 visitors each month. Because of this enormous audience of people actively looking to adopt, your cats are probably more likely to find the right home for them here than your own organisation’s website.

Also, if you use the PetRescue feed to drive your own website, you only have to do one upload and both sites will be up to date.

Call all of your media contacts

Let them know that you’re coming up to your busy season and need their help to save lives. Find out if their interested in doing a pre-rush spread of available cats and let them know that you can provide high-res professional photos.

Avoid doing ‘kitten dumping’ stories, stray cat floods or anything negative. You need to make the story about adoption, the benefits of cat ownership and any promotions you might be doing on adoptions.

Develop a colour pet-of-the-week advert in your local media

Speak to your usual sponsors about a fantastic opportunity to be seen to be helping animals; a colour pet-of-the-week advert in your local paper. Let them have a big brand opportunity in return for you coordinating with the paper a cute pet each week. Always profile your most cute and adoptable pet, even if its likely that pet will already be adopted. You want people to know that your shelter is a great source of healthy, loving animals.

Be sure to have your phones manned by professional, enthusiastic staff who have a list of your available cats on hand when the story runs. Chances are there will be a lapse between when you send through the profile and when the story features, so those cat included may very well already be adopted. And that’s ok! Explain that the featured cat has been incredibly popular and has already found a new family, but that there are several others that can be emailed or discussed over the phone. Easy!

Check your donation procedures

With all this extra exposure, you’re sure to have people wanting to make donations to help cats find new homes. This is an excellent chance to capture their interest in your work.

• For people coming on site with product donations have a ‘thank you’ brochure printed up (a black and white photocopy is fine) thanking the person for their support and wishing them a happy holidays. Outline a little about what your organisation brings to the community and local homeless pets.




• Make sure everyone visiting on site or making donations gets acknowledged by staff, even if it’s just a smile and a wave. Don’t have people drop anything into ‘bins’ – especially actual rubbish bins – what you’re actually saying ‘your donation is rubbish’. Have a rack or box for donations that gets regularly cleared and if you must, have the bins located out of sight of the public.




• Anyone who makes a donation should be invited to leave their details, especially their email address for future mailing. These are your organisations most loyal supporters so you want to know who they are!

Develop a ‘free’ cat adoption program

Free cat adoption has had enormous success overseas in dramatically increased adoptions.

• Johnson County, Kansas adoption fees were waived for cats, and adoptions doubled. The summer promotion was such a hit, they decided to extend the deadline as it successfully gave adopters an extra incentive to take in adult cats — often the last to be adopted at shelters.




• In August in the US The Humane Society of Boulder Valley enjoyed its largest adoption day ever, which was also the first day they ever offered free adoptions for cats and kittens. In a single day, they placed 117 animals.




• By co-oincidence, on the same weekend, New Zealand SPCA, offered a free-feline Friday. The Wellington, Wairarapa, Newtown, Waikanae, Levin and Masterton branches offered cats to the public with a waived fee over the weekend. Their offices were flooded with prospective owners on Friday morning and by Friday afternoon and 150 animals were adopted.




• In June, in the US, 41 shelters and rescue groups got together for the Maddies Matchmaker Adoptathon, offering free pet adoption. They did so with the aim of emptying their shelters. The result? 1,500 pets were rehomed in a single weekend.




• And finally, we have Nevada Humane Society US, who have been using ‘free’ in their adoption mix since 2007 and now rehome more than 1,000 pets a month.

If ‘free’ still makes you feel a bit funny, check out the report ‘Comparison of Attachment Levels of Adopters of Cats: Fee-Based Adoptions Versus Free Adoption’ published the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, that found

• Attachment to cats adopted did not decreased when adoption fees were eliminated,
• That eliminating adoption fees does not devalue the animal, or the rescue group in the eyes of the adopters,
• And that there was no increase in the percentages of animals returned.

The ASPCA are now officially recommending ‘fee waived’ programs as a valid technique for increasing cat adoption (http://www.aspcapro.org/free-adult-cat-adoptions.php). Visit their website to see how other shelters have implemented it, how they’ve recouped costs and got management on side.

Get your in-store program up and running

During kitten season you’re going to want to get as many pet stores as you can on board to help you showcase your animals. Start phoning pet-free stores in your area to find out who would be interested in having kittens in-store over the summer.

A quick and easy program that you could start today would look something like this;

• Purchase a number of ‘caboodle’ enclosures from Cat Max (http://catmax.com.au/caboodles.php). We found the ‘Mini Caboodle’ with cat walk, staircase and pet house provided an attractive, safe, multi-level enclosure. These would be big enough for a few kittens or up to two cohabiting cats.




• Source a team of volunteers (how many depends on how many stores you will be working from).




• You’ll want a morning volunteer and an afternoon volunteer. They will be responsible for;
  - visiting each store to check on animal health at an agreed time each day
  - changing litter trays, checking water and food
  - collecting any adoption applications to be returned to your shelter (alternatively store staff can fax or email them through)




• Store staff should also be responsible for monitoring animal health and cleaning up any spills or poop.




• Adoption applications can be made for the animals, but the shelter can request that they are first approved. The more streamlined this process the better, but initially volunteers can bring back any applications after their visit.

More information on creating an effective in-store adoption program can be provided by PetRescue (info@petrescue.org.au).

Tell people about it! This is another good story for your media contacts; be sure to let them know there are cute kittens in store should they like to visit and get some great pics!

Don’t forget to also have a donation box or ‘wishing tree’ in their store. As people buy gifts for their own pets, they are generally very supportive of buying something for a homeless animal.

A ‘wishing tree’ (a Christmas tree covered in gift tags featuring a pet’s story and suggestions of the kinds of donations you need) can be located at the front of the store. Or a box placed at the checkout where donations can be left.

Again everyone who donated should be invited to leave their details (have a sign in sheet next to the donation box) and be given a ‘thank you’ sheet from your organisation.

Desexing

Obviously, desexing is vital to reducing the number of cats entering your shelter in the coming months. Speak to your local vets about a three month discount promotion for anyone who wants to desex a cat; get them to agree to a voucher that can be collected from your organisation.

For people who are low income earners, or wanting to desex a feral or semi-owned cat desexing should be free. Ask your sponsors if they would be interested in sponsoring a number of desexing operations (say 20 at 100 each) in return for a logo on your website for six months. Have a page of ’supporters’ logos thanking them for their donation.

Now, if people have contacted you wanting to know what to do about a feral, offer them free cat desexing in return for them caring for the cat.

December

Arrange to extend your opening hours

People are more likely to visit your shelter if you are open at times when they’re not at work. You need to be open full days on weekends, and arrange at least once weekly ‘twilight’ adoption opportunities, where your shelter stays open until 8pm or later.

Then you need to tell people about it! Opening late doesn’t help if people don’t know that you’re open. Announce your summer opening hours on your Facebook page, in your email signatures, in the local media and ask your supporters to put up posters in your local area (vets, shopping centers, community notice boards).

Invite a local radio station to do a late night broadcast from your cattery. Hold a sausage sizzle. Get a local celebrity cat lover to come on site. Offer adoption promotions. Anything that can encourage people to come visit you.

Hold a ‘free’ adoption event

Now’s the time to run your first adoption event. Use ‘free’ as a point of difference; a hook to get the media interested. Let people know you will still be using your normal screening procedures and that all cats are being adopted desexed and vaccinated.

Pick a day when the shelter can offer extended trading hours and invite families to come in as a group after work to choose a new family member.

When you come to sign off on the adoption, give them all the information they need plus an invoice for all the charges you’ve incurred in getting their cat ready for adoption. Often when people are presented with how much the cat has cost you and asked for a donation they will pay what they can. But don’t worry if they don’t! By showing them you’ve provided them value, they’re also more likely to become donors in the future (so make sure their contact details get into your fundraising systems!)

Holiday adoptions

Image: No Kill Nation

While it wasn’t too long ago that holiday adoptions were considered a sin, but nowadays shelters that shut down adoptions for the holiday are few and far between. The overblown fear that holiday adoptions equal impulse gifts that will be given up soon after the holiday, has been replaced with news stories of holiday adoption promotions, reduced fees to encourage lifesaving, happy pets and support for new adopters.

If people are going to buy a pet we’d should encourage them to come, speak to us and get good advice; instead of walking into a pet store. Our rescue groups have policies and procedures that help people make good decisions. We need to yell from the rooftops; shelters are a great place to get a pet these holidays!

Ask your media contact to help you do a Christmas themed promotion (think cats in reindeer antlers and playing with tinsel) and feature a little holiday cheer in all of your cat adoption photos.

January

Keep your extended hours

While school is out, you’ll want to make it as easy as possible for families to visit. Put out regular calls to your media contacts to ask that they include adoption stories, available pets and cute kitten photos in their publications.

Hold a ‘kitten shower’

Summer is a great time to hold a ‘kitten shower’ featuring some of your newborns (think baby shower but for kittens!). Ask the public to donate things your kittens need or just come on site to hold a baby. A great media release is here:

“Breaking Mews. Animal Friends Hosts a Kitten Shower”

“It’s a boy! It’s a girl! It’s a kitten! Animal Friends is hosting a baby shower with a whole new twist by bringing 30 kittens in from foster homes to help them find forever families.”

The Kitten Shower is your chance to attend a unique “baby shower” where you can meet our adorable new feline arrivals and drop off a shower gift that will help us to provide the litte ones with all that they need for a strong start in life.

The event will be held Sunday, August 5 from noon-3 p.m. at the Ohio Township shelter, officially known as the Caryl Gates Gluck Resource Center. The address is 562 Camp Horne Road.

Animal Friends will be decked out in pinks and blues and there will be shower games. Guests can make treat-filled baby bottles for the kittens to bat around. The homeless kitties even have a gift registry in the Animal Friends retail shop.

Gorgeous! More info on hosting kitten showers here.

Try things. Then try other things

Make adoption promotions the focus of your organisation. Be topical, building around events in your community like movie releases, holidays and sporting events. Some things will work, other things wont; but what’s important is that your focused on getting people in the door and maintaining an air of positivity during this difficult time.

With a bit of creativity now, you can put in place systems and promotions that will help you save the lives of cats and kittens entering your shelter or rescue. Involve everyone in making this time some of your most innovative, successful and fun. Really, what have you got to lose?

What have I forgotten? I just know you have a fantastic adoption/cat promotion idea that I’ve missed off this list. Comment with your ideas :)

If you haven’t already; check out this OK Go clip, featuring some amazing rescue dogs (background on the clip here);

Not only is it an absolutely fantastic hat tip to rescue, with clearly happy dogs doing ‘doggy’ things, this video is a bit of a microcosm for what is happening right now in the rescue industry.

If you’re old like me, you’ll remember a time when music videos weren’t allowed on YouTube. If you recorded one of your favourite bands off Rage and put it up, it would immediately be taken down for infringing copyright and you’d receive a stern letter from the record label. This was because the music industry saw the public as a threat to its profit model, wanted to maintain absolute control on how and where its artists were represented and really liked the status quo and didn’t want to change.

Unburdened by the restraints of big music labels, small artists bucked this trend. They interacted with their public directly through mediums like YouTube, Myspace (and more recently Facebook and Twitter) and started to actively encourage people to share their music and ideas. They could see their public wasn’t their ‘problem’, but were in fact their customers. And they realised that people if people were inspired, engaged and given tools to share their passion that they could generate millions of dollars worth of free promotion (personal recommendations, the holy grail of marketing!)

Now nearly all music videos are uploaded to YouTube by bands. This OK Go video has been viewed 4.4 million times in 8 days! The capacity of an empowered fan base is immeasurable.

The major rescue groups in Australia, are still maintaining a very 1990’s-music-label view to business. They see the public as a threat and an enemy to be coerced at every opportunity. They work to maintain absolute control on how and where their animals are represented, often not only NOT using free social media tools, but actively chasing and threatening the public who take their time to do it on their behalf. They like the power they have under the status quo and don’t want things to change.

The reason most ‘big’ animal welfare groups fail in their efforts to engage their community’s is, like the music industry, you can’t despise your public and ask them to help you. You can’t ask people to be inspired and spread your message, while keeping your performance hidden and refusing to be truthful. You can’t enter the social media space and refuse to talk honestly about your successes and your failings. You can’t present your organisation as a community member, when you lock out your public and refuse to let them work with you.

The new, No Kill advocates are the remixers, the independents and the rock stars of the modern rescue industry, empowering their public to not only speak up for animals, but to promote and support their lifesaving mission. They see their public as a fan base to lead and inspire. They encourage participation and demand that their public aren’t just silent spectators, but vocal advocates helping spread their messages. They are modest, don’t take their community’s support for granted and work to be transparent and accountable.

The shift in mindset is profound. It may even be impossible for those who’ve always had complete control to ever move comfortably in the cloud, working without the safety of ‘walls’ between the public and their organisation. But for tomorrow’s No Kill leaders, this is an enormous opportunity. With no limits, there is no limits to what can be achieved.

Warning readers; this made my bile rise so you might want to go grab a cup of tea before you get reading.

For the past 19 years, Whyalla Council has killed animals via carbon monoxide from an old Holden motor. Prior to the gassing, Council killed dogs by shooting them in the head and cats, by poisoning them in a chloroform box.

Cats deemed ‘feral’ have been killed immediately, while the local RSPCA who is located just next door, picks some of the best dogs for rehoming (“the small ones”). Last financial year, Council killed 273 animals (240 dogs and 33 cats).

According to their 08/09 Annual Report They impounded: 646 dogs, returning 351 to their owners. Leaving 295. If they’re presently killing 240 dogs a year – they’re supporting a kill rate of around 80%.

This was confirmed in their January media feature, where they lamented that 44 dogs were impounded during December, 24 were claimed and the remaining were 20 were destroyed (a 100% kill rate).

But ‘good’ news today; after a kick by their community they’re going to stop gassing pets!

Registrar of dogs Ronald Versteegh. In the background is the gas chamber, which will no longer be used to euthanise animals.

Animal gas chambers have finally been put to rest.

Whyalla City Council made recommendations on Monday night to adopt a policy of euthanising animals by injection.

The recommendations called tenders for the provision of an animal euthanasia service for a three-year period.

Council chief executive officer Ian Burfitt said it was a good move by the council.

“It would be safe to say that there was a fair degree of concerned expression across the community,” Mr Burfitt said.

He said due to the high concern the council came to the decision to stop using gas chambers.

He said Whyalla vet doctors would perform the euthanasia by lethal injection.

“We put the report up recommending we go out to tender for vets to undertake that service,” he said.

Mr Burfitt said originally the gassed animals were taken to landfill but now they would be of disposed by the vets.

This council, who used to shoot pets and then gas them, but will now switch to the more humane method of barbiturate overdose, seems to be forgetting to ask one vital question.

Do these pets really need to die at all?

Certainly it’s easier to jam pets in a box and kill them than it is to train them, advertise them and find new homes for them, but what about the obligation to actually offer these animals some kind of ’shelter’ when they’re in care? Sure it’s easier to blame your community for being ‘irresponsible’, but what about animal management’s ‘responsibility’ to be using killing as a last resort and to have tried every possible avenue to find these pets new families?

The new system of ‘humane’ killing is set to cost Council $22,000 to $25,000 to euthanase the 273 animals by lethal injection, or $80 per animal. The Council propose to cover this cost by raising dog registration fees an additional 10% (on top of a 25% increase in June), effectively making dog owners pay for the Council to run a systematic pet killing facility.

On the other hand, those 273 animals could be groomed for adoption. An adopted pet returned to the community brings a small adoption fee to cover vet work and cost $0 in euthanasia charges.

273 animals is less than one animal a day to find a home for. Less than one a day.

PetRescue is free. Facebook is free. Posting available pets on their own Council website is free. A small advert in the local paper could be sourced for free. And yet they’re proposing that the best future for these pets is to be quickly dispatched and cremated.

And that you, as a dog owner, should pay them to do this.

Welcome to your local council. The one who blames you for the killing.

Image: The Catorialist Blog

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know I spent last Saturday at the WA Cat Welfare Symposium. I consider myself a bit of a cat nerd and the previous year’s symposiums had been headed in a good direction. The first year had a big focus on TNR and the second year Kersti Seksel spoke on scientific cat management, which was excellent. So I was really excited about both being involved in this third year and getting to blog out this year’s conference.

But it turns out I haven’t been able to summon the energy to come back and tell you things have gone to crap in WA as it seems just so dire in the face of so much success elsewhere.

I was genuinely disappointed.

Not with the conference let me say; the organisers do a fantastic job putting it on… but at the lack of turn out from animal welfare groups (one attendee from the RSPCA; zero from the RSPCA’s cattery), a few local rescues and interstate guests; but overall, less than 70 people who care enough about cats in WA to become active on their behalf. And at the lack of leadership from cat welfare groups. Same old rhetoric; mandatory desexing, killing to be kind, no other way… the old same stuff that’s been pushed unsuccessfully for decades

The speaker from the government (MLA Joe Francis) pushing for the new cat laws, busted out such gems as;

Rather than defend cats, whether owned by rich people, poor people (or even unowned), this statement got a round of applause and a ‘here, here’ from the audience.

Ignoring that cats are often aquired passively and that these ‘poor people who shouldn’t have pets’ often are just kind people who’ve taken in a stray, the audience sat in judgement of anyone unfortunate enough to be disadvantaged AND a pet owner. Way to throw your community under the bus…

Again, ignoring the fact ‘getting a cat’ often isn’t a decision, but the cat simply joining a compassionate family, this idea that outreach desexing can’t be implemented in our community, in case people use it is both judgemental and ineffective.

In the place of offering this person desexing for their cat, this government proposes that we fine that person (all the while knowing someone who can’t afford desexing, probably also can’t afford the fine) and that if they don’t then comply, that we seize their pet. While shelters are chock to the brim with unowned cats who have no chance at adoption, we’re proposing to take a cat off a family who cares for it, and almost certainly kill it… rather than offer them a desexing surgery.

And major cat welfare groups in WA are ok with this! In fact, they support Mr Francis in his efforts to get this cat-killing law up and running so we can start punishing the irresponsible people by killing their cats asap.

Next, we had a couple of vets speak on their views of subsidised desexing;

Their theory was thus; cats are better off dead now, than with an owner who may or may not be able to afford vet costs at some point in the undetermined future. So too bad to anyone who is happy to scrimp and save or pay back vet costs over a agreed period, or anyone who has a pet and has hit hard times or even just someone who is glad to have the company of a pet because pets are a stable loving force in a life that may be difficult sometimes… because our slogan is ‘if you can’t afford desexing today – then you should have your pet removed from you and killed because you’re a negligent owner’.

How are we supposed to advocate for compassion for animals, when we have so little for them and their owners? How do we expect to raise a generation of compassionate animal lovers, when we are at war with our communities; rounding up their family’s pets and killing them?

Stray, feral, community cats; we want to call them all the same thing and they must be trapped and killed to reduce the ‘nuisance’ they cause in the community. From the largest animal welfare organisation in the state. This is horrible policy.

Even more horrifying, the suggestion of the planned introduction of the ‘Who’s for Cats’ program from Victoria, into WA. The same campaign which increased cat related complaint calls by 50%, impounds by 40% and undermined the image of cats so severely after painting them as shadowy, pests, that the founding organisation had to create a concurrent campaign to try and reverse the damage.

Following failure.

Increasing impoundments.

More dead cats.

Cat ‘welfare’ groups refuse to move beyond the idea that cats are better off dead;

It’s like telephones don’t exist. The internet was never invented. We stay entrenched in failure, while New Zealand surges ahead, the US develop No Kill communities at a record rate. We look at small problems and see them as insurmountable. We see others’ success and see it as unattainable. The defeat in the room was palpable. I am destroyed.

John Sibley tweets me a funny from the US and I remember that just last month I sat in a room full of people who’d all taken their community’s to No Kill and that they’d faced these same hurdles of ‘animal welfare’ people hell bent on killing and unwilling to stop.

These No Kill advocates succeeded. Those defending the killing were swept aside as the public realised to ‘kill to be kind’ was a misnomer and that the blame for a lack of progressive programs lay squarely at the feet of animal welfare groups who instead lobbied for archaic, community punishing laws.

Two young pro-life advocates spoke to me at lunch. They were just as disgusted with the lack of leadership, the lack of inspiration, the lack of compassion, being shown by our animal welfare leaders. They reminded me that this isn’t about trying to get the ‘old guard’ to change – that, sadly is impossible – but to give new rescuers tools and a voice to try new things. To show them the success of others. To help them throw off the unhelpful mantras of our industry; there’s no other way, animal overpopulation means we have to kill and people are largely irresponsible.That have all proven to be false.

Those who champion killing have no place in our future. They will be remembered for this time in history – when the blueprint to No Kill was presented to them and they instead continued to choose killing. When their peers all embraced success and gave the formula freely and willingly and they instead continued to advocate to have the power to put to death of thousands of animals without account or question. They will be remembered as those who could have fought for animals, but chose not to.

They will fail. The public of Australia are getting wise. They love their pets and want more for than a certain death sentence for homeless companion animals. And we will not give up until they are safe.

A regional scheme provided pensioners and low-income earners with assistance to get their animals desexed. Guess what happened next?

No really. Guess what happened.

A dramatic decline in the number of animals being impounded.

Here’s the article because it’s just so good:

Scheme helping animals

In conjunction with the Walgett Veterinary Clinic and the Walgett Shire Council, the RSPCA has been running the Community Animal Welfare Scheme (CAWS) in Lightning Ridge for the fifth year in a row this week.

Dr Ann-Margret Withers from the RSCPA said the scheme provided pensioners and low-income earners with assistance to get their animals vaccinated and desexed in an effort to control overpopulation in regional areas, where impounding numbers are essentially the same as the number of animals euthanased.

The scheme also involves an educational program, which will be run at the Lightning Ridge Central School in October, to foster long-term attitudinal changes to responsible pet ownership in the community.

Dr Withers and local ranger Andy Bostock both agreed there had been a dramatic decline in the number of animals being impounded since the scheme had begun.

Local veterinarian Dr Enid Coupé said she had also seen a decline in the number of incidences of Parvovirus as a result of the scheme; however, she admitted there was still a long way to go.

More information about the CAWS program can be found here:

Veterinary services are provided at subsidised rates to pensioners and low income earners. These include permanent surgical desexing and health checks involving vaccination and microchipping. Local veterinary clinics are utilised as much as possible to reduce costs and ensure the programs are sustainable. More importantly, contact with local vets helps to generate relationships between clients and their local vets and promote a culture of desexing and responsible animal ownership. The programs are run in regions where veterinary capacity is available as well as regions where veterinary capacity is scarce. The animals targeted are those that would normally not be desexed due to cost.

Next time you hear some extrodinarily rich animal welfare group bleating on about how ‘it has to kill pets’ because the government won’t introduce compulsory desexing/ban puppy farms/licence owners… know that there are other organisations that are reducing pet killing by simply helping their community.

In WA last year, new laws were drafted that would force WA cat owners to sterilise and microchip their pets. Which would have little effect the majority of WA’s cat owners, as they are overwhelmingly compliant already;

RSPCA spokesman Richard Barry yesterday applauded the move.

“In WA there are about 10,000 cats and kittens euthanased each year.

“Ninety-five per cent of cats are de-sexed by responsible owners.

“It’s those other 5 per cent of irresponsible owners who are the problem.

So who are the last 5%? Poor people.

By August (the following month) the number of cat killed in WA had reportedly climbed by 30%;

Jandakot MLA Joe Francis, who is working on the Bill for the Government, said yesterday he hoped the move would ensure that in 10 years, every cat in WA would be on a national database and the epidemic of thousands of unwanted, healthy kittens being euthanased each year would end.

Animal welfare groups, which have long campaigned for tougher rules on cat ownership, welcomed the moves.

Mr Francis said his research showed 14,000 healthy cats were put down in WA last year.

While the RSPCA weighed in;

RSPCA national president Lynne Bradshaw said State cat laws were long overdue but she also wanted a “dusk to dawn” curfew for all cats.

“We’re keen for this to be taken up as quickly as possible,” she said. “That leaves fewer cats to be bred and fewer cats to be euthanased for no good reason.”

And ahead of the presentation of this legislation at the Cat Welfare Symposium this weekend, this week the cat ‘euthanasia’ rate had climbed again, this time by 42% (in a single year!);

Mr Francis said the cat legislation was a move to ensure the epidemic of thousands of unwanted, unhealthy kittens being euthanased or dumped would end.

“About 17,000 kittens are destroyed every year,” he said.

So with all this double talk and claims of ‘doing it for the cats’ what do we really know?

We have an owned population of cats, who are overwhelmingly desexed.

And we have a purported kill rate which seems to be guesstimated at best, and getting larger the closer we get to having new cat laws.

Before we drink the Kool Aid and let animal welfare groups drive us in into this future, as animal lovers we have to ask the hard questions.

• Are groups so interested in getting their legislation pushed through, that they’re willing to throw poor owners and their pets under the bus, really working for animal welfare? Could we reach this ‘last 5%’ with programs which help people comply, rather than punish them for not complying?

• When they’re aware that these kinds of laws drive up impounds, is it ok to fudge the numbers in preparation so it doesn’t look so bad when unowned cats start being rounded up by council? If it isn’t ok – where are our real numbers? Our hard data which can be monitored to ensure the legislation is having the desired effect of bringing down kill rates?

• And if those lobbying for the laws claim to be doing so ‘to reduce the number of cats killed’ can they explain how lobbying for is giving councils absolute power to round up and kill unowned cats, is going to reduce the numbers of cats killed in shelters?

Mandatory desexing, registration or confinement is a death sentence for free-roaming cats. These kinds of laws have driven up impounds in every place they’ve been tried.

While answers to the stray problem are staring us in the face, how sad that those who should be on the cutting edge of promoting humane solutions and cat protection are still pushing to see ownerless cats treated like garbage; rounded up, killed and thrown in landfill.

Image: Colbalt123 Flickr

Whyalla Council Pound in SA is under fire for using a gas chamber to kill the community’s stray pets;

“A lot of people were upset when they heard that abandoned animals were euthanased via gassing chamber,” Mr Pollock said.
…
Senior legislation compliance officer Ronald Versteegh said three alternatives would be explored, including injection of barbituates, euthanasia via ‘gassing’ chamber and gunshot.

However, Mr Vesteegh saif it was “highly unlikely” that death by gunshot would be considered a better alternative.

Mr Verseegh said although cost would be considered when choosing an alternative, the council would try and keep costs low.

“Cost is very minimal at present,” he said.

So just how many dogs and cats are being killed by the council? From January this year;

The Whyalla City Council dog pound saw a minor decrease in impounded dogs during the festive season, but still needed to see improvement.
……….
Mr Woolley said 44 dogs were impounded during December 2009, which saw 24 of them claimed and the remaining 20 destroyed.

This was only one down from the 45 impounded in 2008’s festive season, with about the same claim and destroy ratio.

So when it comes to killing, this council is enjoying a near perfect record so you know, job done. And if people would just stop using the local shelter as a place to take lost pets, there wouldn’t be this annoying backlash about the council gassing these pets to death. Stupid people.

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While in Blacktown NSW, a pound advertises – people respond – pets lives saved… who’d have thunk it? From the Blacktown Advocate;

Staff at the holding facility said the Pet of the Week (POW) article in the Blacktown Advocate (newspaper) increases their incoming calls and inquiries.

“More often than not, the POW is sold almost immediately after going to print,” a worker told us.

“And even when the POW has been sold, some people choose another furry friend to add to their family.”

The rehoming rate of cats at the facility has increased since the introduction of the Cat of the Week.

“It is a little more difficult to re-home cats because a lot of people want kittens.

“But we have had Cats of the Week that residents of Blacktown have fallen in love with,” staff said.

All of the Dogs of the Week are usually rehomed.

Rescuers often see the article in the paper and put their name down to take the dog if the facility doesn’t sell it.

Imagine if pound managers allowed their staff to think up new and innovative ways to get the word out about the pets they have in care rather than just thinking up the cheapest way to kill them? Pets might actually leave alive!

Photo: The Daily Puppy

If I were to start a charity to help homeless people, take donations from the public and purport to be a leader in welfare; and my organisation was called, The Foundation for the Charismatic, Good Looking, Healthy Homeless I think I’d have some explaining to do.

Because everyone knows that it would be wrong to discriminate against someone who needed help just because they weren’t good looking. Everyone also knows that a lack of charisma may actually be a precursor to needing more help to get ahead in life, so to form a charity who excludes this group is missing those who may need the most assistance. And when people found out that rather than work to create programs to help those with health problems, that I advocated their immediate ‘euthanasia’, I would probably be howled down as completely unprincipled.

And yet for many in the animal welfare world, their charity model is based on this exact idea; The Foundation for the Easily Rehomed, Well Behaved, Healthy Homeless Pet.

However, unlike ‘people’ charity CEO’s, shelter managers have had the advantage; the little gem ‘overpopulation and human irresponsibility’. All the while the public believed there were ‘too many’ pets to find good homes; these organisations could help the happy, easily rehomed, well behaved, healthy pets – kill the rest – and claim their charity was doing ‘all it could’ to help animals. It was a sweet deal; animal charities got rich, the public didn’t ask questions and the animals… some got saved, others were deemed ‘better off dead’ and no one had to work very hard because if an animal didn’t get rehomed, they could just call it ‘unadoptable’ and kill it too.

In 2010 however, the wheels have fallen off the traditional ‘kill’ model. Shelters around the world have lead their community to No Kill, not with fancy new laws, licencing or confinement, but by treating and caring for all the pets who need help, regardless of how they look, how they behave, or how easy it is to find them a new home.

Shelters who offer ’shelter’ to the most disadvantaged in our communities, just as a human charity would, and finding way to save and respect the lives of the animals they claim to protect;

Austin, Texas has its highest save rate in August ever, thanks to the firing of the ASPCA-backed director and the move toward a No Kill Equation-based system: almost 8 out of 10 animals were saved. The Nevada Humane Society is breaking its own adoption records by doing the same. A shelter director in Australia which was saving 93% of all dogs and saved all baby kittens this year in the Australian Capital Territory takes over the shelter system in Tasmania, immediately dropping the kill rate by 38%. And an open admission shelter in New Zealand is on track to finish the year with a stunning 99% rate of lifesaving.

This of course is starting to make shelters who built their whole empires on ’save a few nice ones, kill the rest’ nervous. They don’t want to have to work to save lives or spend their enormous fortunes on silly things like ‘treatment’ or ‘rehabilitation’… so they’re looking for laws to help them out. They lobby for laws against pit bulls and pit bull crosses, ignoring evidence which shows breed bans fail to make the community safer, simply because its easier to kill a pit bull than find it a home. They lobbying for laws which meant all cats must be desexed and confined, so that free-roaming cats must be impounded and killed (for their ‘own good’ obviously) because its simpler than finding solutions for these community cats. Finally pets which are sick, have behaviour problems, are old or young, look to codes of practice to determine they are all unadoptable.

But the days of the The Foundation for the Easily Rehomed, Well Behaved, Healthy Homeless Pet are numbered. For groups to secure the support and donations animal lovers in the future, they must stand up and protect all animals, not just the easily rehomed, well behaved, healthy ones. That is going to mean innovation and lifesaving programs. It’s going to mean a change of leadership. With communities going No Kill worldwide, shelters who refuse to find solutions beyond killing are no longer going to receive their public’s blessing or support.

Mahatma Gandhi is often quoted by animal advocates for saying; “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”.

Today the new truth is thus; “The greatness of our nation’s animal welfare organisations and their moral progress can be judged on how they treat the most vulnerable animals they care for”.

Modern sheltering is about solutions for all animals that need help; not picking and choosing those who do and don’t ‘deserve’ our protection. Sick and treatable pets, pit bulls and free-roaming cats are the last vilified group of victims to be offered compassion. There is no No Kill future unless groups find solutions beyond killing them for convenience.

This is just fantastic;

More than 100 dogs per year will be given a second lease at life thanks to inmates at the John Morony Correctional Complex.

NSW Minister for Corrective Services, Phillip Costa, joined Londonderry MP, Allan Shearan, to launch the initiative last week, which will see selected John Morony inmates assist in the rehabilitation of shelter dogs with social and behavioural problems.

The initiative follows the ‘Pups in Prison’ program that started in 2002, is the third canine program organised between the RSPCA and Corrective Services NSW.

The prisoners, who will study a certificate II in animal companion services, will be responsible for the care of the dogs and their training.

Each dog will go through a three-month training course, which will be supervised by RSPCA and prison staff, before being fostered out to a home.

Inmates also helped build the training centre, which includes 30 kennels, a vet room, a training room and an adoption centre.

Offering innovative behavioural rehabilitation for pets is a vital step to modern sheltering. The fact that the development of this program mean both the dogs win and the prison inmates win, shows that with the right leadership, shelters can go from a place where pets are summarily killed to a vital community service offering compassion and second chances.