From Ryan Clinton; ‘While We Argued, Queenie Died’

Surprisingly for most outside the movement, and unsurprisingly for all inside the movement, we are fought. We are fought more than we ever could have imagined. We are fought by powerful aides of politicians who prefer the comfort of a known death to the prospect of a life saved. We are fought by press members who have swallowed everything they’ve ever been told by shelter management— that reformers are obstacles, animals unwanted, and killing inevitable.

We are also fought, tooth and nail, by the most powerful animal-welfare organizations in the country, who cannot fathom the thought that local animal advocates— lawyers, doctors, teachers, nurses, and persons from virtually all other professions— might actually have something to add to the animal-welfare policy arena. And we are fought so devastatingly hard by the shelters themselves, who take the idea of life-saving reforms personally, and the idea that alternatives exist with incredible disdain.

The great tragedy is, of course, that while they fight us, dogs and cats continue to unnecessarily die. Good dogs, not just the vicious and hopelessly suffering, although they too deserve our love. Adorable and friendly kittens, not just feral cats, although they too deserve our love.

…. sometimes, it takes a wake-up call to remind us of what is at stake. And for me, this short film about Austin, its No Kill movement, and Austin Pets Alive did the trick.

After threatening to sack a Director who spoke out about their appalling performance in saving lives, the ironically named Cat Protection Society Victoria did just that.

Ms Alexandra, dumped after a special general meeting on October 18, said the society had become complacent. ”It’s important the general public understands what’s going on,” she said. ”These cats are being killed because of complacency, a lack of effort. I think homes could be found for these cats, certainly more cats than are currently being adopted out.

However, despite killing 11,348 of the 12,491 cats and kittens it received and two more Directors resigning in protest;

… the organisation denies being in turmoil.

I guess the only question I have is HOW CAN YOU NOT BE IN TURMOIL? You absolutely SHOULD be in turmoil! You should be panic stricken, disgusted with the situation you are in and begging ANYONE with an interest in saving, rather than killing cats, to lend a hand. Even if you flat out tried for a terrible result, I don’t think it would be possible to see a worse result than 11,348 cats dead and in landfill, so for it to be the result for“Australia’s Largest Cat Welfare Organisation” it is a failure of epic proportions.

How did they get into this mess? It is a plan we can all choose not to follow. How do they get out of it? Simply, they don’t. When board members are quitting because they can’t make headway and a 90% kill rate doesn’t bring ‘turmoil’ to an organisations management, there is simply no hope for the cats of Victoria.

As No Kill animal sheltering gains momentum across the globe and more people realise that the tools and programs that have had success elsewhere not only work in Australia, but can work in their own communities, advocates are going to find themselves more and more often facing a situation of resistance.

Resistance is how a traditional, high kill pound or shelter defends the status quo when it realises that its community has turned against it. For decades these shelters have been taking in pets, saving a few ‘nice’ ones and killing the rest. They have been telling their communities that ‘there is no other way’ and that the community themselves are to blame. “If you people would be responsible,” they scold “then we wouldn’t be the ones doing your dirty work in having to kill all these pets.” But suddenly in the face of No Kill success across the world, across the country and down the road, communities are not only questioning, but demanding change. They want more for their community’s homeless pets than a swift end – they want to see the enormous fortunes donated to these animal welfare groups used for its intended purpose; to give homeless pets a second chance at a happy life.

Shelters can’t openly reject the notion that pets should be offered foster care instead of death, that pets should be given a chance with a rescue group rather than be killed, that pets should be kept healthy instead of allowed to have their health and behaviour deteriorate whilst in care, that pets should be promoted off-site, online and in the local media rather than summarily killed, or that pets should be allowed to go into new homes rather than have potential families turned away by uncaring or bureaucratic staff… because if they reject these notions then they put themselves firmly in the firing line of their community.

Given the loss of support, donors and resources is crippling, they find themselves left with two choices; change or resist. And often, entrenched in the status quo, offended that people are criticising their performance and scared of being forced into transparency and accountability, they choose to resist.

It can be hard to spot resistance. It’s passive aggressive. It’s often dressed up in positive language, a pledge to ‘do better’ and a plea for everyone to ‘just work together’. Sometimes deals are made with the advocates who outed the shelter in the first place; ‘if you just work with us, we promise to improve’. And because No Kill advocates are working only to get a better result for animals it can seem like a good outcome. Of course these relationship quell disquiet and can be drawn out to make shelter reform take five, ten or an undetermined number of years. The community assume that everything is on the mend and the heat is off. Meanwhile pets continue to die.

So how does a No Kill advocate spot resistance, versus a real desire for change when working to overhaul their local pound? And can you move a high kill shelter out of this state of resistance and into real and positive action on behalf of pets?

Resistance: We don’t believe it should be called ‘No Kill’ as this is misleading to the public, because we do still kill hopelessly sick or suffering pets.

The resistance to the idea of calling their procedural overhaul a ‘No Kill’ initiative is simply designed to move attention away from the real issues inside the shelter. If the organisation you are working with is attacking the terminology of the program, while failing to comprehensively implement the programs and services in the No Kill equation, you know you are dealing with resistance rather than a true desire to see change.

At this point many No Kill advocates compromise; “call it what you want, just do it”. But this ignores the real belief being pushed by the shelter – the belief that animals must die at the hands of the animal welfare groups who claim to be working to save them. By making the first step such a huge diversion off the No Kill path, not only are advocates giving away much of their power back to the shelter; “we will follow the No Kill equation, but only if we can pick and choose the bits we like”, but we are buying into the idea that the public are too ignorant and too stupid to understand the No Kill model.

There is an excellent piece by Christie Keith on why we shouldn’t ‘Surrender the Power of No Kill’ when it comes to interacting with the public; we should also be careful not to surrender the power of No Kill when we’re dealing with shelters in the flux of resistance, giving them the ability to dictate which life saving programs they will and won’t implement.

Resistance: No Kill advocates are a militia, their arguments are inflammatory and we see no reason why we should work with groups who have been working against us.

Before No Kill advocates were in their community all was well. Now these ‘militia’ have come onto the scene and the shelter is in a world of trouble with their public. Of course it’s not hard to see these advocates are to ‘blame’ for the new reality. Except.

No Kill supporters overwhelmingly, are their public. They aren’t professional trouble makers and often wouldn’t even consider themselves animal advocates. Who they are is a varied as the community they reside in. The do have one thing in common though; a love of pets and a desire to see them survive their interaction with their local shelter.

These No Kill supporters could and would be the shelter’s biggest champion should it choose to adopt a life-saving focus; they already promote adoption and have adopted pets themselves, they volunteer at the shelter, they donate resources and large sums of money, they care for unowned cats, they would open their hearts and homes to a foster pet, they love their own animals and spend millions on pet care, and they want shelters to be doing all they can to save homeless pets.

To treat these people as the ‘enemy’ is the shelter management turning its back on the desires of their community. In a similar fashion to how they labeled their communities ‘irresponsible’ and arbitrarily decided pets would be ‘better of dead’ than risk them being given to new families or community rescue groups. To suggest that No Kill advocates are extremists who don’t reflect the views of the wider community is one of the strongest forms of resistance; it is also desperately inaccurate in Australia’s progressive, pet loving society.

Resistance: we will work with rescue groups, but only those we choose/who don’t criticise us/for the pets we deem suitable/and we reserve the right to be able to revoke this at our discretion.

There is an enormous difference between wanting to protect pets from harm at the hands of animal abusers and holding pets to ransom to ensure complete compliance from community animal rescue groups. Certainly, anyone convicted of animal abuse should be stricken from the pound’s release list, but should a pet be killed because;

- the animal rescue group speaks out about abuse/lack of performance of the shelter?
- the shelter manager and the animal rescue group don’t get on personally?
- the shelter doesn’t release animals who need ‘work’ with a behaviouralist or vet to get them to the point of being rehomeable?
- the shelter would rather kill the pet today, than risk allowing a community rescue group the chance to find it a new home?
- the shelter would rather kill the pet than release it without charge to a reputable rescue group?
- the shelter manager has found working with rescue ‘too much trouble’ and decides to wind back the program?

Every pet that is killed because a rescue group wasn’t given the opportunity to take it, is a pet held to ransom. This implies that once a pet is in the hands of a pound or shelter that it is then the property of the shelter to do with at they wish.

“What gives any organization, large or small, the right to kill a homeless dog or cat just because they have him or her on their premises? By what right do they deny another rescue group the right to save that animal’s life? On what authority?” ~ Michael Mountain

These groups are funded by the community, to serve the community and should be operating under the mandate that they exist to give homeless pets ’shelter’. This means offering homeless pets options other than being swiftly killed, of which working with community rescue is a vital part.

Resistance: It’s unfair we’re being judged on ‘kill rate’ alone – we’ve done some excellent work in the community including, improving the fines for dropping dog waste, training for school children, lobbying for laws to mandate desexing, developing a responsible pet ownership event… etc…

Defending poor performance in saving lives is a form of resistance. When a high kill pound is killing the pets in its care, while investing in responsible pet ownership programs for school children, it’s a little like a hospital triage letting people die on trolleys while patting themselves on the back for their investment in gorgeous new drapes. The time for ‘nice to haves’ is after you get your procedures in order and you can spare the resources.

Groups in resistance will counter with; ‘yes, but we have to invest in these programs to see benefit in the future’ which is a strawman argument, given there is already a plan that can lead a community to a place where every healthy, treatable companion animal gets saved – the No Kill equation.

Once all of these are comprehensively implemented and the shelter is no longer unnecessarily killing pets, then by all means get cracking on improving the levels of dog pooh on the sidewalk – but until then buckle down and focus. All the while healthy and treatable pets are dying in your shelter, your shelter is in crisis and should be behaving as so – resourcing only the essentials, putting every energy into rehoming and forming relationships to expand lifesaving and putting all your cards on the table (transparency) to allow your community the chance to assist.

Resistance: We refuse to extend our compassion to pit bulls and free-roaming cats (or our local legislation says we’re not able to). We therefore have no choice but to kill.

Every single community who is either already No Kill, or is looking at a No Kill future, had to overcome community perceptions of pit bulls and free-roaming cats. They had to lobby to change bad laws, or prevent them being enacted. And they had to speak out loudly on behalf of these animals, not taking no for an answer. With the same vehemence organsations have chased unhelpful laws which have backfired (mandatory desexing, pet owner licencing), these organisations now need to lobby for the power to save all animals, not just the cute, easy to rehome ones.

To accept that compassion should only extend to ’some’ impounded animals is both lazy and deceptive. The community will no longer stand for, nor support those organisations who are only interested in doing the easy half of the job.

…………..

The more resistance you face, the less receptive to change the shelter you are working with is. A shelter or pound who is genuinely wanting to get better outcomes for its pets won’t be niggling over terminology, defending poor performance or trying to think up reasons to shut out rescue groups… but will be at the opposite end of the spectrum – we need you to help us, help us now, in any way you can. These shelters recognise that what they have done to date hasn’t got them where they need to be and are now begging their communities to step up and help. And step up they do.

No Kill is the future of animal sheltering, because shelters should be saving the lives of the animals they are gifted responsibility for. No Kill is the future of animal sheltering, because the public have been donating millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of man hours because they want to see impounded pets given a second chance. No Kill is the future of animal sheltering, because the No Kill equation is what the community thought shelters had been doing all along and are disgusted when they find out that shelters choose to kill, rather than implement the programs to stop it.

No Kill is the future of animals sheltering and resistance is just the push back of shelter managers who refuse to change. The truth is those who champion killing overtly, or more subtly through resistance, are simply dinosaurs of another era who refuse to mirror the progressive beliefs of their communities. Don’t waste energy trying to unite with those who refuse to move beyond a state of resistance – they are soon to become irrelevant anyway.

Remember Cassie Walker, the shelter manager who was advocating for pets in her community? Well, look at their great adoption campaign!

They’re all adorable and they all need a home.

Oh! Makes your heart sing!

The animals at the RSPCA are all vet-checked and desexed and ready to romp about in your garden, sit on your lap and spread the love in your home like only a pet can.

Perhaps there’s room for a new puppy or kitty at your place?

Have a flick through Finda’s gallery and see if there are any cuties that tickle your fancy.

However, it’s always wise to head out the shelter to meet the animals, as Toowoomba’s assistant shelter manager Cassie Walker points out.

“The main thing we tell people is to come out to the shelter and have a look at the animals so we can see what suits them,” Miss Walker said.

Each Thursday, Finda will publish a gallery of dogs and cats available for adoption.

This is either the second or third week they’ve put this together and called on their community to consider adoption. It seems such a no-brainer to have a local newspaper putting out a regular feature of all the available pets, but these kinds of initiatives need commitment and time and the core belief that if the public get to see these pets, that they will be keen to adopt them – all of which can sometimes be hard to find.

We should all be on the lookout for examples like this of groups doing things right! right! right! and take the time to give them the feedback that we appreciate it.

As the owner of a couple of small breeds, meeting a savage dog (or dogs) when I’m out walking is something that plays often in my nightmares. Surely to watch your small dog, a loved family member, be hurt or killed in a dog attack must be one of the worst things a dog lover can live through. Especially if you are an elderly owner and already feeling vulnerable when out in the community. So the story of a Preston grandmother who lost her dog recently to an attack by a pair of roaming huskies was truly moving to anyone who’s ever loved a dog;

A Preston grandmother has accepted Darebin Council’s offer to cremate her west highland terrier after it was killed in a savage dog attack.

May Anderson said she was still recovering from the trauma of last Thursday’s assault on her beloved companion, which occurred in front of her.

The 89-year-old was leaving her Gower St home for a morning walk about 7.40am when two siberian huskies attacked and disembowelled her dog Hamish.

The dogs were seized and impounded and their fate was left in the hands of Council. Three weeks on, an update:

Only one of the two siberian huskies involved in a fatal dog attack in Preston will be euthanised.
…..
Darebin Council city works and development director Michael Ballock said an investigation revealed only the male husky was responsible.

He said the husky’s owner had given consent to euthanise the dog, found roaming in Preston with a bloodied snout.

The female husky would be deemed a menacing dog, requiring it to be muzzled and on a lead in public.

Mr Ballock said the council would not prosecute because destroying one dog was substantial punishment for any pet owner.

While I personally don’t advocate an ‘eye for an eye’ in the case of dog attacks, on the whole this seems like a pretty reasonable response, yes? By all reports the dogs weren’t known to council and hadn’t been known for escaping. The owner was out looking for them and when he found that they were responsible for an attack, complied with council directions allowing the dogs to be impounded. Seems like a pretty horrible incident that could have happend to any dog owner with large breeds who have accidently gotten out.

The council also seems to have taken a very compassionate stance, recognising that this owner has been genuinely affected by the loss of his dogs and the death of Ms Anderson’s Hamish.

We spend an awful lot of time in animal welfare, lobbying for council’s to act in a benevolent way, not to overreact, knee jerk, ban breeds or bring in over the top laws in response to isolated incidents. So surely we would all be congratulating Darebin City Council? Well no…

Dog attack penalties lenient, says RSPCA

RSPCA Victoria animal shelters manager Allie Jalbert said victims suffered when councils didn’t take the cases to court.

“By not prosecuting, the victims in the case are disadvantaged with respect to getting restitution for financial loss or personal suffering,” Ms Jalbert said.

“If (dangerous dog) laws … are meant to act as a deterrent and the council doesn’t prosecute, what sort of deterrent is it?”

Victoria has some of the most draconian dog control legislation in the country with animal control having over-reaching powers to kill pets caught roaming. What kind of deterrent can you possibly be looking to provide, prosecuting to the full extent of the law, a compliant owner whose dogs got out one day?

If the family of the dog who was killed wants to sue for ‘personal suffering’ then they are more than able to. Fines given to dog owners by council aren’t in some way allocated to the victim, but simply go into council coffers. In this case the council has obviously decided there is no benefit to the community in punishing this owner further.

This is the RSPCA for gossake – surely the dog being seized from its family and being killed for its ‘crime’ is enough? Where is the compassion?

We have bad laws in Victoria. And with animal welfare groups sensationalising and baying for blood, it’s really no suprise.

What happens to the performance of an organisation when the culture is not one of hope and potential, but the absolute conviction that failure is the only option?

‘We know we can’t succeed.’

What if your role in the community is one where lives depend on you – like a nurse, or a policeman, or an air traffic controller – and rather than working to constantly improve outcomes, if the leaders of the organisation instead work to justify poor performance?

‘Sorry you’ve ended up needing our help, but we won’t try and help you because we know we can’t succeed.’

What if the industry is one where once a year it gets really busy – hellishly busy in fact – like retail or travel agents or those Christmas holiday tourist towns; would it be ok to accept defeat then?

‘Thanks for coming just like we knew you would, but we’re not going to set up programs to try accommodate you because we know we can’t succeed’

And what would happen to the communities regard for us, if we took the message of failure to the media and made it our slogan;

‘Hi, I’m Michelle and I know I cannot succeed today, and I have no plans to try and succeed tomorrow and I believe I will probably continue to fail until the new year.’

It’s not hard to see that any organisation needs to nurture a culture that celebrates success. Especially where lives depended on it or if it gets hellishly busy once a year. Management have a responsibility to be driving a strategy to lead the organisation to improved outcomes. By contrast, sending out a pre-emptive message of failure would be the death knell of the organisation, as setting the mindset of both employees and the community to ‘FAIL’ would doom you to reduced capabilty, decreased job satisfaction and almost assured non-performance.

And yet, we don’t only accept, we almost expect this kind of defeatist behaviour from pounds heading into the summer holidays.

The tragic aftermath of cat breeding season will be played out in Gladstone in coming months.

If last year’s figures are anything to go by, up to 100 pregnant cats and unwanted kittens are expected to be dumped at Gladstone pound between November and January next year. Sadly, a large percentage of these will be euthanised.

And the sad truth is it happens every year.

….

A sobering true statement, according to Gladstone Regional Council Local Law Enforcement coordinator Sarah Kummerow.

Ms Kummerow said each year around the Christmas period there was an increase in cat impoundment numbers.

Likewise, many cats are being trapped by community members sick of them roaming the streets and making a nuisance of themselves.

She said the sad thing is a majority of cats get euthanised because people don’t want to come forward and collect them.

“It is much harder to re-home an adult cat than a dog,” Ms Kummerow said.

“People aren’t going to be wanting to adopt a cat – it’s a sad fact of life.

Really? Because there are lots of examples across the world where people didn’t only want to adopt one cat, but hundreds of people adopted hundreds of cats, when organisations took the time to reach out to them.

The truth isn’t “cats get euthanised because people don’t want to come forward and collect them”, the truth is cats get ‘euthanised’ because pounds don’t work on finding solutions OTHER than killing them. By placing the blame on the community rather than setting a plan to improve outcomes for these animals ensures the same result is seen year to year.

Sure, it takes a lot of work to get adult cats into homes, get the media to take notice, to make a result other than the almost certain death for these animals, but saving them becomes our job when we choose to accept them into our care.

What’s more, Gladstone have identified their problems up front and could be working to address each one of these in turn;

- Too many undesexed cats? Hit the issue head on, before it even begins; give every low income earner and pensioner in your community free cat desexing. Target areas where cats are known to be prolific and go door to door offering free cat desexing.

- Too many unowned cats being impounded by enthusastic community members? Stop giving cat haters traps. Stop accepting cats that are feral and have no hope of becoming someones pet. Instead agree only to desex the cat and return it to its home. Stop telling people to bring healthy, free-roaming cats to you if all you can offer them is death.

- Not enough adoptions? 100 cats over three months is about 33 a month – one a day. Host a cat only adoption event. Run a senior cats for seniors program. Get all your kittens into a pet shop. Open your shelter until after 7pm all the way through January. Put your cats on the web with nice photos. Promote ‘barn cat’ adoptions. Use the ‘big fun guide to saving cats’ to plan the next three months.

Advertise what you need your community to do to achieve success rather than squandering media opportunities by promoting your plans to fail. Creating a organisational culture which thrives on success doesn’t just happen, it has to be cultivated, planned and nutured. And without a culture of success these animals have no hope.

Remember the Macquarie Island cat cull? The government removed all the feral cats (around 400-500) in an effort to protect seabirds, only to have it go very, very badly as the population of rats, mice and rabbits exploded, destroying much of the fragile vegetation that the birds depended on for cover and to breed, also causing major erosion and landslips.

The British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology reported that it “caused environmental devastation that would cost authorities $24 million Australian dollars to remedy”

“The unintended consequences of the cat-removal project show the dangers of meddling with an ecosystem ‘even with the best of intentions’ without thinking long and hard.”


So the environmentalists, realising their error, got some helicopters and started dropping poison. I mean, you would, wouldn’t you? And now we have a report on how that went;

The State and Federal Governments are spending almost $25 million on a baiting program to kill the feral animals.

The team always knew that there’d be a risk that kelp gulls would also take the bait and die. But in a letter that’s been leaked to the ABC, the Federal Government has said the level of bird deaths was higher than expected. Other species were also killed.

The species included kelp gulls, giant petrels, black ducks and skuas.

The tally was 431 birds of six species after only 8 per cent of the bait was used.

The poisoning program is now on hold pending a Federal Government review.

Keep in mind that although this is going spectacularly badly, these are the ideal conditions for a program such as this; being that it’s on an island and they have poured bucketloads of money into the project. Whereas if we are talking about the mainland, the government’s feral pest advisory group – the one who is given millions to dream up new toxins and trapping techniques – say eradication in Australia is unrealistic. You need to be able to isolate the location completely to remove each introduced animal in turn.

But what we’re actually seeing on Macquarie Island is the law of unintended consequences on methamphetamine. Even on an island with an almost unlimited pot of money, this effort at reshaping the landscape into what we feel would be a more desirable state, can make a whole load of smart people look just as foolish as those who said in the past… ‘cane toads – that’s what we need!’




Related article; Why we can’t just ‘get rid of’ free-roaming cats

The Cat Protection Society in Victoria has had a disastrous weekend, with a major media outlet getting its hands on an internal document calling for the sacking of a director who dared to question why their performance in protecting cats is in the toilet.

Just how bad is it? In 2009, of the 12,491 cats received, just 1,143 left the organisation alive… or just 9%. The rest (91%) were killed.

In the face of communities who are driving up live save rates toward 90% (a couple of examples here and here), how can this group have gone so wrong? Luckily for the rest of us, there are distinct steps taken by the animal welfare groups in Victoria that have set them on this path of failure, that we could all do to examine and avoid replicating in our own communities.

How to fail at animal sheltering step #1; admit defeat

In 2005, the head of the Cat Protection Society Carol Webb quite famously brought killing into the public eye;

… Dr Webb takes each animal – or “person”, as she likes to say – into the privacy of her office. This is so the rest of the mewling mob don’t freak out. In between each consultation, Dr Webb settles herself, so that she’s neither seething with anger nor shuddering with sobs.

After assessing the kitten’s health and temperament, along with how much space is available at the society’s shelter (300 places maximum), Webb decides whether the little chap will live or die. Even if every unwanted cat is brimming with vitality and winning personality, about two-thirds of the day’s intake are put to sleep with an overdose of anaesthetic, zipped into a body bag and put into the freezer awaiting cremation.

In 2010 Dr Webb is still singing the ‘killing is kindness’ tune.

But as Yes Biscuit said so eloquently recently:

“Come on. We’re not talking about 41 cats over the age of 13 with missing eyes and chronic health problems. These are kittens! You get the local TV news out there and you put the kittens in a basket with brightly colored yarn and a gigantic FREE sign. You let the public know there’s a sale on kittens this weekend with prices so low, you’re practically giving them away – in fact, you are giving them away! They’ve all been examined by a vet and had their first shots. You hold up li’l Tigger to the camera and let him wriggle his nose at the lens. You let kittens crawl on your shoulders and lick your neck and bite your hair while encouraging the public to come on down because the price is right!”

If you’re killing 91% of the cats you’re bringing in, you’re killing the young, the old, the adoptable, the feral, the semi-feral. You’ve admitted defeat and are killing instead of doing the things that could save the lives of these cats. If you are killing them, then you aren’t giving people a chance to save them. If you are killing them, you aren’t giving them the chance to live out their lives as desexed animals, in loving families or managed colonies. And if you are killing them in the eye of the media, you are driving a wedge between you and your community, the very same people you need to help you in your mission.

How to fail at animal sheltering step #2; create a campaign devaluing cats

In 2007 the Cat Protection Society was a leading campaigner in developing the ‘Who’s for Cats’ program. Painting cats as shadowy pests and an environmental nuisance, within the first year, shelters were receiving record impounds. By 2008, there was a 40% increase in impoundments, a 50% increase in cat complaints and not to mention a spike in cat abuse. In 2009, shelters were struggling with intakes and looking for support in capital campaigns to build bigger shelters, while a campaign evaluation showed that the biggest increase impoundments was due to empowered cat trappers trapping neighbourhood moggies;

* This finding has emphasised the importance of communicating to the ‘Daves’ in the community, i.e. the people who are not semi owners of cats themselves, but who are experiencing nuisance associated with unowned cats, and are therefore likely to respond to campaign messages about the need to have these cats impounded.

* It must also be acknowledged that many semi owners have a bond with the cat they are feeding, and may therefore be unlikely to ever have it impounded.

By befriending people who dislike (even hate) cats, rather than working to encourage compassion towards these animals, the state’s cat intakes and killing have spiked to a new, record highs each and every year since the campaign launch. If your goal is to reduce cat killing, this strategy is counter productive, not only seeing more animals flowing into your shelter, but reducing people’s desire to help you protect them.

How to fail at animal sheltering step #3; create a campaign bagging your community

In an effort to get laws to use against the cat owners of Victoria, the Cat Protection Society created a campaign detailing just how crap their community is. The Cat Crisis Coalition was formed:

Shelter workers are sick of it. Sick of seeing animals they love treated in this way and sick of being asked to do the community’s dirty work.

While successful shelters work to reach out the community, the shelters of Victoria, have been for decades berating and criticising:

(the Cat Protection Society) is where you see the daily tragedies of an out-of-control cat population, careless owners and the cruel treatment of cats masquerading as pranks.

Workers are Victoria’s Animal Welfare Shelters are sick and tired of being the community’s executioners.

The shelters are united in their view that the current situation is appalling, unethical and unacceptable and believe the only solution is the compulsory desexing of all pet cats. Quite simply not enough people are desexing their pets.
Cat Crisis media release

So a combined effort of running down cats and running down cat owners, was only going to have one result… the community avoiding judgmental, burnt out shelters in favour of getting their kitten from a friendly pet store or neighbour, while shelter animals die.

How to fail at animal sheltering step #4; make lots of laws

Cat groups lobbied for cat registration in Victoria, which failed to decrease in the numbers of unwanted cats, but it is claimed that it has “helped with reuniting lost pet cats with their owners” (though the Cat Protection Society live-release rate figures begs to differ). What it has done for certain, is require that Councils include cats in their pound systems and start targeting unowned animals for removal.

As the Cat Protection Society and other cat groups lobby for more draconian legislation; curfews and compulsory desexing, more and more Councils are lending traps, encouraging the community to regard free-roaming cats as pests and seeing a spike in the intakes of unowned cats which aren’t suitable as pets.

Compared to last year, more councils have laws targeting cats.

Each council coming on board with new cat laws, should see a percentile reduction in the number of cats impounded… if they worked. Unfortunately, the truth is these laws actually see cat impounds spike and stay elevated.

Bendigo: six years on, still at record impoundments
The City of Casey – three years with every law in the book leads to a 92% kill rate
Geelong – nine months on and a 30% in killing
Kingston and Whitehorse – begin cat trapping programs

Not only are free-roaming, unowned and semi-owned cats disadvantaged, with councils promoting their new cat laws and free cat trap hire, more owned cats than ever are becoming victims of foul play.

The release and care of free-roaming cats is illegal in Victoria. Not having this law would immediately see a reduction in the need to kill cats. If there is lobbying that could be done that would actually benefit cats, it would be to have this law overturned and cat carers in the community offered support and assistance.

How to fail at animal sheltering step #5; don’t really bother with adoption at all

Moggies.com.au was championed as a key to increasing adoptions, only to languish with a half dozen cats listed in Victoria. While more successful groups use an extensive number of external rehoming centres to get animals out of shelters and into homes, little is being done to promote cats from the CPS.

There are literally dozens of ways to improve cat adoptions, many of which can be found here and here.

PetRescue is free. Facebook is free. Posting available pets on their own website daily is free. A small advert in the local paper could be sourced for free. The only way an organisation would fail to use these techniques is if they see themselves as garbage collectors, taking in the animals that no one wants and doing the public’s dirty work. This attitude leads to a certain outcome for pets = death.

“It comes down to leadership. If your leader is in the mindset that the shelter is a helpless victim of society, no progress is ever going to be made. Shelter directors who see the shelter as ‘the end point’ of pet ownership are not people we need to be doing the job.

We need shelter directors who see the shelter as THE ANSWER to homeless pets – sorting them out, finding them homes, moving them forward. Time and past time to break out of the old mindset.”
Yes Biscuit (comments)

The change needed

We need to expect more from our animal welfare leaders. More and more, groups who fail to implement the programs that will save lives are going to be called out by animals lovers. The community want more for than a certain death sentence for homeless companion animals. While answers to cat overpopulation are staring us in the face, how sad that those who should be on the cutting edge are now standing defending the killing and resisting the change that would save lives.

Lets hope the Cat Protection Society use this media attention and supporter feedback as an opportunity to change direction. Letting the director, who showed such bravery in standing up for the cats of the Cat Protection Society, not only keep her job, but embracing her as someone who could lead them to a better future.

Kingston in Victoria has been held up by cat welfare advocates as one of the ‘good guys’ introducing in 2008 compulsory registration of pets over 3 months old and the requirement that all pets be desexed before registration… or mandatory desexing by stealth.

Did Kingston have a cat ‘problem’? Well according to their Domestic Animal Management Plan, they impound just 350 cats each year. Did compulsory desexing fix their cat ‘problems’? Of course not. As we’ve seen time and time again, mandates which target owners do little to improve outcomes for cats as overwhelmingly, cats who have owners aren’t the ‘problem’. It’s the large population of unowned cats who need help.

Unsatisfied, the council have today added a night time curfew to their cat management laws;

Kingston cat owners who let their moggies roam the streets at night will face a $60 fine from next month.

The council’s controversial cat curfew comes into effect from Monday, November 1, grounding cats from dusk till dawn.

The curfew supported by the RSPCA and the Cat Protection Society;

Cat Protection Society executive director Dr Carole Webb said a curfew, already adopted by several Melbourne councils, was in the animals’ interests because it cut the risk of injury and spread of diseases such as feline AIDS.

So now they have their curfew, what happens next?

Once the curfew is official… the council will issue warning notices and ads before starting an after-hours’ trapping program.

Council has been giving the blessing of animal welfare groups to trap and kill cats without owners.

Think its just this one council? Nuh uh – animal ‘welfare’ groups have been busy, busy busy!

From the 1st October Whitehorse Council, also in Victoria, enacted their night cat curfew which was created under advisement from the peak animal welfare bodies in the state including RSPCA, Lost Dogs Home and Cat Protection Society.

Lock your kitty away at night or face a $119 fine.

That is the scenario facing cat owners after Whitehorse Council approved a cat curfew at its meeting last week. The new laws, which will be enacted on October 1, will require cats to be locked in their homes from 8pm to 6am. In a raft of changes to its Domestic Animals Management Plan, the council will also make desexing cats and dogs mandatory from April 9, 2011, and ban cats from bushland reserves.

Did Whitehorse Council have a cat ‘problem’? Their Domestic Animal Management Plan show impounds of 500 cats for the year, with a rehome/rehousing rate of 42%.

This council isn’t wasting their own time in having a staff member doing the night time trapping (although they’re hiring an ‘education officer at the cost of $70,000)… they’ve simply outsourced the work to the community’s cat haters;

The council officer’s reports said Whitehorse would need to spend $9000 on 30 new cat traps if the cat curfew proposal became law.

Two councils, both under advice from the state’s major animal groups, both set to increase impoundments and killing of free-roaming cats. All in the name of improving cat welfare.

The RSPCA Million Paws Walk has been crowned the winner of the Best Charity or Cause Related Event at the Australian Event Awards 2010;

The Million Paws Walk is Australia’s premier pet event and the RSPCA’s major national fundraiser. The event started in Queensland in 1994 and in 2010 over 80,000 people and 45,000 dogs hit the pavement to raise much needed funds for the RSPCA. It’s a fun day out for the whole family and helps the RSPCA extend a helping paw to animals in need. Held on the third Sunday of May each year, there are over 80 walks around Australia and one in every capital city and attendance and support continues to grow.

Think about what that means; of all the amazing non-profit cause related events held around the country, the one that has been crowned Australia’s favourite is the one held by an animal rescue charity, that people get to bring their pets to.

A lot of people spend a lot of time running down pet owners uncompassionate and irresponsible. Many animal advocates see the pet problems of our country as insurmountable without the enactment of a host of draconian laws. But maybe the Million Paws Walk’s success is a symptom of a compassionate society desperate to improve the situation for pets.

Could it be that as animal rescuers and welfare advocates we have simply failed to engage and activate our public?