Knox Victoria

Knox Council Victoria loves to blame its community for its cat ‘issues’, and under the guidance of cat ‘welfare’ groups in the state, they get to continue this with enthusiasm. A recent media piece focuses on the costs associated with collecting impounded cats and whether that has any bearing on ‘the naughty, uncaring public’ picking up their cats:

Knox Council has admitted a costly release fee could be the reason behind a high number of cats being left on death row at the city’s pound.

Council figures for 2009-10 showed 87 per cent of cats picked up by council officers were left unclaimed at the RSPCA-run pound.

The RSPCA charges an $80 release fee for cats collected from the pound in the first two days after being impounded.

After that, the fee skyrockets. If a cat spends eight or more days at the pound, an owner must pay $152 to get the animal back.

If the cat is not claimed, it is euthanased. Only a limited number are found a new home.

Now no doubt $152 is a hurdle to cats being collected by owners. But 13% isn’t actually that low when it comes to cat reclaims. This is because a Victorian study of 26,000 cat intakes showed 80% of cats have never had owners, so have no hope of ever being collected.

In 2009, this fact was pretty much accepted when the council launched their Domestic Animal Management Plan, with council making traps available to residents to trap wandering feral and wild cats;

A majority of the 370-plus cats trapped each year are semi-owned or unowned. Only 14 per cent of those trapped in 2008 were released to an owner.

More than 94.14% of registered cats in Knox are already desexed, and it would be fair to assume the majority of those would be microchipped – so if the cats in the pound are unmicrochipped and undesexed, council should know they’re most likely ownerless strays.

So something has changed at Knox for them to start declaring ‘cost’ and lack of owner redemptions, as the reasons for high rates of killing. Are they simply priming their community for their upcoming compulsory desexing launch in April? Or is something more afoot?

Mr McKail said council would look at alternative options when the contract for the pound ran out in the next 12 months.

He admitted a change in management was likely to be the only way the fees would be lowered, but did not commit to altering the RSPCA model.

“That will involve a bidding process, which will be a chance for them to reduce the rates,” he said.

The council uses the RSPCA Animal Rescue Centre in East Burwood to house stray pets.

I predict there’s a shakeup happening behind the scenes and we’re about to see the Knox RSPCA tender move to the LDH. You heard it here first!

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Wyndham Victoria

I’ve written about the refreshing honesty coming from Wyndham Council previously, where council’s dawn to dusk curfew (that its had since 2006) had done little to reduce the 1200 cats impounded (781 killed) each year. The reason the honesty is refreshing, is that they’re not hiding ‘killing’ under euphemisms like “encouraging responsible pet ownership”, or “improving cat welfare” , but simply calling a spade a spade, giving traps to the public and expanding killing;

Stray cats are rife in Wyndham, the city’s deputy mayor says.

Cr Bob Fairclough said just 55 of 1100 cats impounded in 2009-10 were registered, indicating “a very large feral cat problem in our municipality”.

Alarmingly, 935 of the impounded cats were put down.

The council last week approved plans to manage the city’s cats and dogs over the next four years.

Plans to reduce stray cats include temporarily reducing the bond residents pay to hire traps to catch strays on their property and offering residents who take ownership of a stray cat a discount on having it desexed.

Cr Fairclough welcomed the plans.

He said stray cats spread diseases such as feline Aids and ringworm to domestic cats.

Cr Heather Marcus said two strays she took in last October had ringworm.

“I have ended up with ringworm in my household and it has taken me three months of very hard work to clear the animals of this dreaded fungus,” she said.

“This is one of our biggest issues and certainly is one of the biggest concerns for this council.”

Much better that community cats are all dead, than have ringworm. Got it.

See… honesty.

While Wyndham has kept their killing high by giving traps to the public, they’ve had little success in actually enforcing their cat laws and are understandably leery of committing to more;

The city’s cat control order, or curfew, expired in 2010 after 10 years, without a single fine being issued.
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Cat owners will not be forced to desex their cats under the plan.

The council has said this was not needed because 95 per cent of Wyndham’s 5415 registered cats were already desexed.

Stay tuned for more killing in Wyndham, as they continue to do what they’ve been doing, verbatim.

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Whitehorse Victoria

Mirroring Wyndham’s ’success’ in their cat curfew not being enforced against a single cat owner in 10 years, Whitehorse is also leaving their cat management up to community vigilantes;

No night cats have been nabbed during the first five months of Whitehorse Council’s controversial curfew.

The council has not issued any fines or warnings since the cat curfew came into effect last October. The new laws required cats to be locked in their homes from 8pm to 6am.

The council has employed a full-time staff member to administer the program and spent $9000 on 30 cat traps.

Much easier to outsource cat management to people who hate cats, than get those annoyingly expensive and qualified, not to mention humane council officers out of bed after hours… I mean come on people!

Cat owners are obviously nervous

Burwood East cat owner Ursula Kolecki said a blanket curfew across the entire city failed to serve the needs of the wider community.

“It’s a system that is not enforceable and there are cat owners who are anxious about there being cat nappers out there,” she said.

But cat ‘welfare’ groups are decidedly upbeat;

RSPCA animal shelters manager Allie Jalbert said the curfew promoted responsible pet ownership and positive cat welfare. “Cats are less likely to be injured, spread disease, kill wildlife, fight with other cats or breed indiscriminately if they are kept indoors at night,” she said.

Not to mention less likely to fall into the hands of crackpots with council provided, welfare group approved cat traps and grievous intent.

The cats really seem to be the losers here.

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Western Australia

Does this sound like a quote from a) a moderate, science-based animal advocate, or b) a burnt out misanthrope?

He said 90 per cent of cat owners were responsible, but he had heard “the whole gamut of excuses” from the other 10 per cent.

“Mainly they want their children to see ‘the miracle of birth’, or (say) they can’t afford (sterilisation).

“I suggest they go and watch some of the thousands of healthy but unwanted kittens that are euthanased every year and experience the ‘tragedy of death’ instead.

“Anyone who allows their cat to breed adds to the genocide.”

If you guessed neither a) nor b)… but c) a politician who’s been spending too much time with burnt out misanthropes, you’d be right!

Jandakot MLA Joe Francis said cat laws were in the final stages of drafting, and would focus on de-sexing and micro-chipping, with exemptions only for licensed breeders. “I expect a State cat act will be introduced in the near future,” he said.

Can you imagine any other instance where a politician would say;

“Mainly the small section of the public who doesn’t comply say they can’t afford to comply… so we as a government felt rather than work to help them, we thought it important to ignore their plight and bring in a universal law, in an effort to punish them.”

Yeah, no.

We know where the cats are coming from in WA. Poor suburbs. Of the 7773 cats brought to the Cat Haven, (3137 of which were adopted) in 2010, the biggest sources were Cannington, Willagee and Balga.

So what do you call a law that is used to target these vulnerable and disadvantaged people? One that effects those people living in poorer suburbs exponentially more, because they are overrepresented as to be breaking the law?

Discrimination.

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Ipswich, Queensland

Showing that enforcement and coercion is a really hard and expensive way to move the community forward, Ipswich council has a low uptake for cat registration;

Figures show only about 15percent of felines in the region have been registered despite the State Government introducing mandatory registration in 2009.

Nearly two years after the scheme began, Health and Regulation Committee chairman councillor Andrew Antoniolli (pictured) admitted only 5011 of the estimated 32,000 cats in the council area have been registered.

“The population of Ipswich reached 165,000 last year and it was estimated the combined dog and cat population of the city was around 58,085 or just over one-third of the human rate,’’ he said.

“The current registration of cats is 15.7 percent of the estimated cat population in Ipswich.’‘“The community is reminded that our animal management officers are in the field on a daily basis and may issue infringement notices on people who have unregistered cats, just the same as those who have unregistered dogs.’‘

Cats laws are tricky to enforce; even if you have the budget to go door to door, how do you prove that a cat belongs to a household? Maybe you can scan it for a microchip… if you can catch it. But are the microchipped cats even your problem? Assuming registration is to “reunite cat and owner to reduce kill rates” and not simply revenue raising or a chance to beat up on cat owners, microchipped cats are the least of your worries… it’s the unowned and unchipped cats that are the issue.

Soooo… what is a council to do? Stop with the threats. Stop with the mandatory laws. Stop with the idea that you can heavy the cat owning community into compliance. And simply offer your community a service they believe in.

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Final thought – has anyone else noticed there is an awful lot of cat killing going on in the name of ‘cat welfare’?

This article is out today, but could have just as easily been written a decade ago, and is the epitome of the ‘bad, naughty public’ rescue media release;

Fewer people are able to give a dog a home

More abandoned dogs and cats are going without a home now than at any other time in the past 10 years, creating an “adoption crisis”.

The Animal Welfare League reports that dog adoptions are down 30 per cent and cat adoptions 10 per cent compared with the average of the past decade.

South Australian Animal Welfare League operations general manager Damien Marango said while adoptions were down the number of animals handed over was steady. “Many animals are also taking longer to be housed,” he said.

Mr Marango said research showed financial pressures families were facing was the main reason for the drop.

“Last year, our adoptions started to plummet as we experienced continual interest rates hikes and this year, the outlook is not good,” he said. “Our figures have continued to fall with the introduction of a flood levy (and) discussion of carbon tax.”

He urged all South Australians to consider adopting a pet, such as 10-week-old female staffordshire cross puppy Indigo.

The carbon tax? Really?

What makes this an especially terrible article (apart from like, all of it) is the fact its only purpose of it was to encourage adoptions. The desired outcome was to bring people into the shelter. And they’ve tried to do that with the message;

People are bad! They give up their pets! No one is adopting! There’s financial pressures. We have no choice; it’s hopeless.

It’s a common approach, but not a very effective one.

Imagine for one moment any other business marketing themselves in this way;

You guys suck! You’ve stopped buying cars! We’re going out of business and you’re all to blame! The economy is killing our business. Take pity on us and buy a car?

As discussed here previously, telling people they’re bad, doesn’t get people in the door to adopt. Whinging to people that you’re having a crisis, doesn’t get people in the door to adopt. Complaining about the economy, or global warming, or a lack of some law, doesn’t get people in the door to adopt.

What does get people in the door to adopt, is positive promotion of the individual pets a group has available.

You gotta make people fall in love – not criticise them or berate them, or whine at them. And there is a lot that any group can do to get their pets in front of a really large audience and it costs nothing;

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Pets Haven in Victoria have a Facebook page with nearly 30,000 members. They use this page to promote the animals they have in care, call for donations to individual pets and – most importantly – celebrate when a pet gets adopted!

By creating a community of pet-lovers (rather than just simply ear-bashing them), the group gets thousands of dollars of free ‘advertising’ for their pets and have a community of advocates rooting for, and actively participating in their success.

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One technique The Animal Welfare League in QLD uses is PetRescue.com.au and a fantastic team of volunteer photographers to get astoundingly beautiful photos of their pets in front of an enormous audience.

The pets practically ’sell’ themselves with such gorgeous pics.

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Whyalla Vet is a South Australian group who takes advantage of the colour ‘Adopt-a-Dog’ adverts which have just started in newspapers nationally every Sunday. Nearly 10,000 visitors a day flock to visit the profiles of the animals featured, flooding groups with potential adopter options.

Being included in these advertisements is free and open to all rescue groups who list on PetRescue.

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Late last year, the RSPCA Victoria ran a weekend  ‘adoption fee waived’ cat promotion. In three days, 110 cats found new homes. And they only stopped there, because they ran out of cats.

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Even more lifesaving

A shelter saves a pet in under 2hrs

A shelter saves six dogs in three hours

A pound saves 79 pets in a week

A regional pound saves 97% of the dogs it takes in

A pound in NSW uses ‘Pet of the Week’ adverts and sees great success

Continuing to blame an ‘irresponsible public’ for low adoptions – in the face of overwhelming evidence that people DO want to adopt, they DO want to open their hearts to a rescue pet, that they DO want to help groups – makes no sense. Adoptions must be made an organisational priority, just as important as events and fundraising; and talented and innovative people need to be encouraged to be involved in the process. The only limit is our imaginations.

There is no ‘adoption crisis’. Positive, proactive marketing by compassionate shelters finds pets homes.

From the Brimbank Leader today;

Brimbank Council (VIC) says just 31 per cent of Brimbank’s impounded dogs are united with owners.

It has been a State Government law since 2007 that all dogs and cats registered for the first time must be microchipped, but in Brimbank the council estimates only 40 per cent of dogs and 15 per cent of cats are registered.

To help, the council will hold a pet microchipping day on Saturday, March 26, between 10am and 3pm.
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This year Brimbank Council is offering a two for one deal to encourage owners who have not yet registered animals, and pets being registered for the first time will have the fee for the next year waived.

We know there are things local councils can do to increase pet reclaims. The reclaim rate of a shelter without proactive programs is generally around 40-50% for dogs. A pound who offers innovative programs can drive up the reclaim rate for lost dogs up to around 65%. The advantages of doing so are obvious; more pets being collected by owners, or being returned straight home = less pets in care which reduces shelter costs. Less pets uncollected after their holding time, leads to less animals needing rehoming. And more pets being reclaimed, rather than needing to be fully processed by the shelter, often means less killing.

A study of 20,000 dogs entering Victorian shelters, showed 85% of them are entering as ’stray’, or lost dogs. With Brimbank offering their community a little over 30% in the way of reclaims, there is a remaining 55% of dog intakes that likely also have owners looking for them. The reasons for not making the connection are numerous. They may be from other councils. They may have been kept by the finder for an extended period, interfering with the process of reuniting pet and owner. They may simply be misidentified over the phone, or the owner simply gives up looking after a few visits to the pound. The pet owner has no idea about pounds or shelters and simply gives up hope. The owner may have transport difficulties, or trouble getting time off work. Whatever the reason, proactive redemption save lives.

Blaming an ‘irresponsible public’ for the high number of lost pets and low number of reclaims is part of the traditional sheltering paradigm which puts the onus on the owner. Under this approach, if someone has lost a pet, it is their responsibility to come down to the pound or shelter to look for and hopefully recover their missing companion.

It is believed that if the pet owner cared enough about their missing dog or cat, that they would make the effort to drive down to the pound daily. This thinking further assumes that if they don’t show up, then they don’t deserve the animal. The prevailing viewpoint says that under these circumstances, the pound is doing a service to the animal by finding it a different home or even killing him/her. It is a flawed paradigm which costs many animals their lives.

Beyond scanning animals for microchips, many pounds do very little to help people recover their lost pets. Worst yet, most shelter workers and pet owners have absolutely no idea how lost pets behave, the typical distances they travel and the best search techniques to recover them. The result is that people get discouraged because they are using incorrect search techniques that fail to produce results. People who are discouraged, lose hope. People without hope, give up searching. The result is that lost pets are not recovered. Instead they are absorbed into feral, stray and pound populations. The end result has been high kill rates. It is the broken system which has been dominating sheltering in our country today. And it is time for a new approach.
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What ‘Missing Animal Response’ demands is the same principal of how law enforcement, fire departments and ambulance services operate. Approaching the issue of reuniting lost pets from a public service platform will actually save the lives of more animals than shelters are currently saving. That is because expecting grieving, broken-hearted people who are untrained and unequipped to search for their missing pets and who easily give up hope (because there are no resources to help them conduct a thorough search for their lost pet) does not make sense.
Notes from: Missing Animal Response: a Paradigm Shift to Reduce Shelter Kill Rates, by Kat Albrecht (free download here!)

Thinking ‘lost’ not ‘abandoned’ can help pounds implement policies which increase the number of pets who go home, rather than working to simply impound and process them.

What shelters can do

To their credit, offering microchipping days and fee-waived registration programs are a great place to start; but there is much, much more pounds can do to promote reclaims.

Sell the benefits of pet registration
Rather than present registration as a pet owner requirement or we’ll fine you; promote registration and microchipping at a ‘pets ticket home’. Registered pets, or pets wearing ID should be delivered straight back to their owner, rather than impounded.

Improved on-site response
Recognise that a pet that has gotten out, is probably just a once-off mistake. Officers can check identification, scan for a microchip, knock on doors where the animal was found, talk to residents and return pets home rather than impound them.

Offer billing options
Holding a pet to ransom until the owner can pay in full leads to increased non-collection of pets and puts that pet at risk of being killed. Instead offer billing, backed up by a collections department. Whether the owner can or can’t pay, it doesn’t really help either way to kill the pet and the pet is better off at home.

Improved impoundment procedures
The drive from Brimbank to North Melbourne where the pets are impounded is around half an hour. Public transport means a few changes and takes more than an hour (and dogs and cats have limited access to travel on public transport). If the owner is of limited mobility getting to the shelter may be impossible. Uploading good, clear photographs to a website of lost and found animals, then becomes vital.

Expanded lost and found pet reports
Every pet reported lost, should be given a case number and detailed records kept. These have to be matched to incoming animals, not just filed away. Volunteers can also be used for the following:

- Lost pet councilors: Volunteers offer councilor, encouragement, strategy and advice to every person who reports their pet missing. Volunteers would regularly search cages for animal look-a-likes, even weeks or months later.

- Reverse searching: Volunteers respond to the neighbourhood where a stray dog or cat was picked up to knock on doors, put up posters and pass out flyers.

- Distant shelter searching: Volunteers throughout the region routinely search all nearby and distance shelters and report back with any possible matches.

- Other media: Volunteers look at notices in local newspapers, on lost pet websites, classifieds and other pet websites.

Effective pet reclaims are a team effort

It is not enough to hold pets until their ‘time is up’ and claim that any unclaimed pets have been abandoned. By shifting from passive to a more proactive approach pounds can make a significant impact on lifesaving and return a large percentage of lost animals to their families.

More information on pounds which have had success using these models;

- Calgary Canada;
Bill Bruce is the Director of Animal and Bylaw Services at the City of Calgary, whose animal control department has achieved a +90% level of dog licencing compliance. Using the revenue from pet registrations they are able to run an open admission, self-funding shelter which saves 82% of cats and 94% of dogs… and they’ve done it without mandatory desexing, without breed specific legislation and without pet number limit laws.

- Washoe County, USA
Reno (Washoe County) takes in more animals per capita than most communities, over two times the national average and roughly 35 animals per 100 people. On top of high animal intake rates, as a tourism based economy it has been very hard hit by the economic downturn and has a high foreclosure rate. Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the entire country. Luckily for the animals, Mitch Schneider, head of Washoe County Regional Animal Services, uses specific policies and practices that have brought Washoe County to having one of the highest live-release rates in the world.

More info still

Myth busters – Not all shelter pets need a new home
Missing Animal Response handout
Municipal Animal Programs That Work (Best Friends)

Truth is an important and rarely used tool. Secrets are usually good indicators that foul work is afoot. Exposing the truth is like letting the sunlight in. I realise most people don’t share my love of truth an openness. That’s OK. They can go fuck themselves.

My favourite quote of the day – anon

Displeased with me highlighting their end of year figures, showing The Lost Dogs Home rehomed 3,101 pets and killed 13,594 last year. And annoyed that their history of supporting campaigns which mandated the killing of pit bulls and drove the community to vilifying unowned cats is now being questioned by the public – the Lost Dogs Home have begun working behind the scenes to try and ‘muzzle’ Saving Pets.

As you may know, for the last seven years, I’ve been working with rescue groups across the nation get pets into homes through the website, PetRescue. For the last two years, the team I work with have secured a relationship with Pedigree, to work on a major national adoption promotion, the Pedigree Adoption Drive.

This promotion allows hundreds of small and independent rescue organisations and the animals they care for, the kind of exposure only normally available to those companies and non-profits with multi-million dollar advertising budgets. This campaign has saved literally thousands of lives, made rescue pet adoption more popular than ever, and has even changed the vernacular of animal ownership; with the word ‘adoption’ now championed by the public, and ‘he’s a rescue’ becoming an oh-so-fashionable claim to fame for every second-hand moggie and mutt.

However, now the Corporate Affairs Manager of the Lost Dogs Home is in contact with our major sponsor, threatening a smear campaign against PetRescue (and by association Pedigree) should I continue to be critical towards their policies in this blog.

It’s a quite appalling proposition; that a group claiming to be advocating for animals, would work to kill a program saving thousands of lives, just to censor community opposition to their own poorly preforming shelter.

It shows a massive lack of compassion towards animals, to be willing to put a hugely beneficial program for small and independent rescue groups and the pets they’re working to save at risk, simply to quash the tide of public opinion against their refusal to contemporarise their own shelter’s programs.

And to threaten this… because of my blog… a blog which is all about is about saving lives, improving animal sheltering, and agitating when groups kill animals, instead of implementing the programs and services that would stop it… is so counter intuitive to promoting animal welfare that it’s gobsmacking.

Especially, when you consider there is an alternative way to quiet criticism. That would be to put those same energies into developing the programs which would save the lives of animals entering their shelter.

The Adoption Drive belongs to all of us. I have been immensely proud to have been a part of the transformation we’re seeing in animal welfare to date, but I am also only one cog in a giant machine that is creaking into life, and that I’m positive will gain huge momentum in this country. Not only are the team I work with, volunteers and advocates, some of the most skilled and dedicated I’ve ever met. Every single rescue group who has taken the time to champion for the behalf of every pet in their care by photographing, uploading and posting animals – more than 100,000 of them all together – not to mention showcasing their animals at events and media launches; we are all part of an amazing movement that is growing exponentially.

Rescue have worked hard. We earned this campaign. But what we also understand explicitly, is the Adoption Drive is bigger than any one of us, or any one animal organisation. To attack it, is to attack us all. And it leaves me deeply saddened that anyone claiming to be in ‘animal welfare’ would separate themselves from the rescue industry so completely, as to feel they have the right to sabotage the outcomes of so many of their peers.

So will this action against me stop me blogging? I’m actually not sure. Saving Pets might not go on, but I know I will keep working for the animals. I know I will continue to focus my energies where I believe they can do the most good. I know I will continue to stand up to bullies and those who put their own drive for control ahead of the animals they purport to care for. And I know that I will never shut up; no matter how influential or rich or powerful the opposition.

The pet-loving public is numerous and passionate. All the work we do is for the animals and our passion burns brightly because of it. We will not stop questioning. We will not stop driving for reform. And we will not ever stop working to save lives. That I know for sure.

Please note: The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the writer and no one else, nor any agency or organisation. All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my peers or employer.

Dear Sir / Madam,

I need help or some advice? I work in the Coburg area and behind my work is a family of cats (dad, mum & one kitten left) living in the lane way behind a number of shops. Some of the shop owners have built a shelter (which is quite good) The mother cat is expecting again any day. I have been feeding the cats every now and then as they are also fed by a local shop keeper (given fresh meat and chicken). They don’t really belong to anyone. I am willing to pay for the female cat to be spayed once she has her new batch of kittens but I don’t know what to do with the kittens once they arrive. Previously some of the shop owners have taken the odd one or two. I have contacted the cat protection society and another similar organisation who inform me that they would just put them all down. I would appreciate any advice you may have. As I stated I am willing to pay for the female to be spayed – do you know of a vet that would do this for an alley cat? Thanks and any advice appreciated.

What you have – a compassionate person looking for help, willing to act as a cat caregiver.

What Victoria cat ‘welfare’ groups have offered her – to kill the cats.

This isn’t even close to good enough. This is the kind of person you should be grabbing and engaging and using to better the lives of cats in your state; not fobbing off by telling them you’ll kill the kittens she’s willing to help you to save.

If your state’s laws aren’t what you need, then every Victorian animal group who is killing because of this outdated legislation, should be on the streets protesting until the laws are changed. You, as the spokespeople for cats, need to be demanding that these cats are offered protection and that you are granted permission to care for these animals.

If your shelters are full in 2011, just as they were in 1970, then guess what… you’re doing it wrong. If the best you can offer a compassionate community member looking for help, is to offer to kill some cats, then guess what… you’re doing it wrong. If you’re killing kittens, when other communities have all but dried up their kitten supply through outreach desexing and community cat care, then guess what… you’re doing it wrong.

The cats of Victoria need groups who do more than claim to care, and take millions of dollars from the community in the name of ‘cat welfare’, bu then in reality do little more than act as garbage disposal for local councils, taking on trapping contracts and killing thousands of cats annually.

The cats of Victoria need groups who genuinely champion those policies that protect cats.

The cats of Victoria need a hero.

I received this email last week;

You could really help a dog we have in care at our shelter at Armidale in northern NSW in need of surgery before we can make her available to be adopted.

Neither the shelter nor our RSPCA branch, who are providing support, can afford the amount needed so we have launched a campaign to raise funds for this specific cause. All the details are here. Any help in publicising Millie’s plight will help her get her new home.

thanks
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Phill Evans
New England Regional Companion Animals Shelter
http://armidaleanimalshelter.blogspot.com

New England Strategic Alliance of Councils – Balancing autonomy and cooperation to enhance services to our communities
Armidale Dumaresq Council www.armidale.nsw.gov.au
Guyra Shire Council www.guyra.nsw.gov.au
New England Weeds Authority

Millie is a 9 year old labrador who was abandoned by her owners. With the cataracts completely blinding her estimated to cost $5,500 to remove, she could have easily been deemed ‘unsavable’ and euthanased without fanfare. But the unreasonably compassionate staff of the New England Regional Companion Animals Shelter, took it upon themselves to ask the community for help, setting up a blog to promote Millie’s plight, called ‘Help Millie See’.

Launched the end of February, it featured a heart-melting video of Millie which showed exactly how her cataracts effected her quality of life. They used this blog to thank donors as they came forward. They publicised Millie in the local media. They kept the community updated on Millie’s progress and the progress of their fundraising.

Less than 15 days later, the group has raised more than the money needed – they’ve raised nearly $6,000 to Help Millie See… An extraordinary achievement brought about simply by asking the community for help.

A huge congratulations to Phill and his team.

Groups who spend their time criticising their community for their faults are missing awesome opportunities to tap into their compassion. Groups who spend their time ruminating on how the public is the ‘problem’ and advocating for laws to ‘teach them a lesson’ build barriers between themselves and their community, and ignore the reality which is, overwhelmingly, the public are good and kind and pet loving… and the solution to reaching ‘unreachable’ goals.

The shelters who will see success in the future are those that promote saving lives in the face of obstacles. Those groups who will thrive in the future, are those who believe in serving and involving their public and who refuse to be content with ‘blaming and killing’, instead taking the time to advocate to their communities on behalf of the pets. Those groups who will lead us into a future where shelters are a safety net for animals, are those who recognise the ‘good’ people in the community, make up 100 times over for any ‘bad’ people in the community and that engaging the good people should be the focus.

Powerful opportunities for social engagement come from transparency, trust and creativity. This is the new world of animal sheltering.

Animal advocates are rumbling about the new ‘Greens supported’ companion animal welfare laws in the ACT as being some of the most important in the country. Those who dare question it, they say, are simply against good animal welfare policy, or are in league with the puppy farmers, or just want to see pets to continue to die in shelters. It’s just one big o’ conspiracy theory.

But what is the actual potential of the legislation in saving lives? To find out, first, we need to get familiar with the laws surrounding keeping domestic animals in the ACT already in existence.

The Domestic Animals Act 2000 requires that along with registration for cats and dogs;

• You can’t keep an undesexed dog without a permit (Part 3, 74-1)
• You can’t keep an undesexed cat without a permit (Part 3, 74-2)
• Dogs must be desexed before 6 months of age (Part 3, 74-4)
• Cats must be desexed before 3 months of age (Part 3, 74-4)
• You must apply for a permit to keep an entire animal for breeding (Part 3, 75)
• All dogs over six months of age and cats over 3 months of age, must be desexed before sale (Part 3, 74A)

While the Domestic Animals Regulation 2001, made under the Domestic Animals Act 2000 requires;

• That dogs that are at least 12 weeks old, or at point of sale, must be microchipped (Part 2, 7-3)
• That cats that are at least 12 weeks old, or at point of sale, must be microchipped (Part 3, 8-1)

So we have laws which say you can’t keep an undesexed adult animal. We have laws which say you must apply for a a permit to breed. We have laws which mandate only very young animals can be sold undesexed (under 6 months for dogs and 3 months for cats) and that all pets must be microchipped before sale.

These are a lot of the laws that groups in other states are beavering away to enact as the ‘solution to pet overpopulation’ in their communities – how’s it worked out here?

Are these laws working in the ACT?

Well, cat numbers have remained high, with ten years of mandatory desexing failing to decrease cat numbers;

“That figure has been growing, 5, 10, 15 per cent per annum over the last five years, so there’s a significant issue with regard to kitten desexing or cat desexing in Canberra”.
Michael Linke – ABC: RSPCA ACT overrun with kittens

And realising that there are genuine hurdles to desexing, and probably a not insignificant number of unowned cats, they have called for more support services.

“We need the Government to police the legislation that’s in place and we need them to work with the local veterinary community to try to make desexing more accessible.”

The conclusion that compulsory desexing does not reduce cat intakes mirrors a report by By Dr. Linda Marston, Dr. Pauleen Bennett, Vanessa Rohlf and Kate Mornement in 2008 which showed the following intake information for the ACT:

Corresponding data for cats show that the number of cats that were euthanised closely paralleled the number admitted.

There was a decreasing trend in cat admissions observed between 1997 and 2000, which was accompanied by a reduction in euthanasia (49.2% in 1997­ 1998 and 38.1% in 2000-2001).

Importantly, in 2001-2002, the year after the DAA (2000) legislation was introduced, the euthanasia rate jumped to 62%, although it decreased back to 36.3% in the subsequent year. This may indicate that a temporary increase in cat euthanasia is likely to follow the introduction of mandatory desexing legislation.

Since 2002, admissions have increased and the number of cats that are euthanised has increased accordingly, although not to quite the same extent. This is due to an increased number of cats being rehomed over the last two years. However, the proportion of cats’ euthanised has risen in recent years, perhaps because 474 feral cats were admitted in 2007. This is an 8% increase on 2006, when 440 feral animals were admitted (M.Linke, pers.comm.). Reclaim rates have remained relatively low compared to dogs.

While in the case of dogs,

(The graph shows) an overall decrease in the number of dogs admitted to shelters in the ACT each year for the past decade. This trend commenced two years before the introduction of the DAA (2000) legislation but was temporarily interrupted by a substantial increase in dog admissions which occurred just before the legislation was introduced.

In the first 18 months of implementation there was a dramatic decrease in admissions, but this has slowed somewhat since then. Generally, the patterns for rehoming and euthanasia parallel the admission data, although there was a spike in the number of dogs reclaimed in 2001-2002. This can be attributed to greater public awareness resulting from the publicity associated with the new legislation (M. Linke, pers.comm.). At this time there was also a reduction in the number of dogs rehomed, which mirrored the spike in reclaims. This is important data. Even though there were fewer dogs for potential adopters to choose from, the fact that numbers rehomed decreased may indicate that those available for adoption may not have been suitable to rehome.

Current euthanasia rates at the RSPCA (ACT) are about half the level they were in 1997-1998 i.e. decreasing from 26% in 1997-1998 to 13% in 2006-2007.

So the RSPCA ACT, who balance animals between their shelter and the major pound (DAS), have a euthanasia rate of around 13%,

“Our homing rate is based on the formula whereby animals put to sleep are divided by all animals received. Some animals that go to DAS are included in this number, but not all as in some cases the animal goes directly to DAS from our holding kennels and does not enter our computer system. DAS’s homing rate is also in the 90% range.”
Michael Linke – DOL forums April 2010

These impressive dog figures could be attributed directly to this legislation, except that is not the conclusion drawn by the by the Marston report:

The ACT experience has also shown that the introduction of mandatory desexing legislation may affect the euthanasia rate of dogs, although this may also be explained by other initiatives put in place by the two shelters in this region in the past decade. It does not appear to have affected the euthanasia rate for cats. The numbers of kittens admitted has not decreased and the admission rate of feral cats has increased. This observation could be attributed to the following factors:

1) The reduction in shelter admissions of dogs resulted from a pre-existing trend and the temporary increase in admission rates resulted from the introduction of the legislation.

2) The large numbers of stray kittens admitted to the RSPCA in the last two years suggests that mandatory desexing is not targeting the source of the cats admitted. This hypothesis is supported by the increase in the number of feral kittens admitted (M.Linke, pers.comm).

3) The reduction in dog euthanasia rates may be due to better rehoming practices and greater commitment to maintaining the health and well-being of the animals impounded.

Both governmental and welfare agencies stressed that the introduction of mandatory desexing without appropriate resources made the legislation virtually unenforceable.

So that is where we are in the ACT – where are we looking at going?

What new laws are the Greens proposing and are they necessary?

(RSPCA ACT) CEO Michael Linke says thousands of animals are offered for sale in classifieds and on the internet each year in Canberra.

He says 5,000 animals were listed in the classifieds of one local publication in 2009.
…..

“It’s just making a mockery of the laws in place in Canberra where we have compulsory microchipping, compulsory desexing and licences available for breeders.”

“The laws are good, we’re got some of the strongest animal welfare laws in Australia … but there is no policing, there is no follow-up,” he said.
Pet laws need policing – ABC

Enforcement has always proven to be an issue with these kinds of laws, not only because cat laws are largely unenforcable, but because funding this enforcement becomes a major issue for local council. If you have a council with animal laws that aren’t being enforced and add more laws, the result is simply more laws not being enforced.

But despite this experience, more laws is where they’re planning on going anyway. In December last year, the Greens supported bill in question, was introduced into the ACT Assembly with the backing of the RSPCA. The bill would:

• Ban puppies and kittens being displayed in the front windows of pet shops – shops could still sell pets, they just have restrictions on the way they can be displayed
• Ban the sale of pets at markets – which is probably a good thing, though conclusions about the influence on animal euthanasia rates would be speculative
• Prohibit the sale of pets to children – good, but probably a negligible problem in relation to euthanasia
• ‘Mandatory desexing’ of all pets at point of sale – effectively mandating ‘early age desexing’ for all pets. Which may be fine, if the surgery was risk free, but it’s not. Animals can also be sold under a ‘desexing voucher’, further reducing any potential effectiveness of this mandate.



Having recognised these kinds of laws are ineffective in targeting cats, and the low rate of euthanasia for dogs… not to mention ongoing problems with enforcement, it seems these small and incremental changes seem to be based on hype and politics, rather than a genuine desire to improve animal welfare outcomes.

From the Australian Companion Animal Council:

“Experience has shown that an over-reliance on a purely regulatory response to animal management issues results in disappointing outcomes for both the animals and the people who care about them. This is particularly the case when the underlying drivers are not well understood as is the case with shelter overpopulation.”






Keeping on doing what doesn’t work (but with more gusto!)

We know what the solutions are to eliminating the killing of animals in animal shelters. None of these proven solutions have been based on a creative new laws punishing the community, or incrementally enacting more and more draconian legislation targeting owners and their animals. Almost despite their laws – thanks to innovative animal sheltering and the setting of No Kill goals – shelter animals in the ACT are probably safer here than anywhere else in the country. And yet the ‘punishment-based’ thinking is so entrenched, that animal advocates still champion the idea that the public is the problem, that their community will buck the trend and create an utopian set of laws, that will drive them to No Kill.

There seems to be an overwhelming focus on emotions, rather than solid deliverables in this ‘Greens’ legislation debate. Polarising and branding people as ‘for the animals’ or simply ‘profit motivated’ depending on whether they support, or question, the effectiveness of these new laws. While it can make for exciting advocacy, popular politics and satisfying opportunities to sling mud at the pet industry… seems none of these pastimes are based on improving animal outcomes, or getting pets out of shelters alive.

The legislation in the ACT is already incredibly restrictive and largely unenforced, which would surely leave anyone asking; could improving services to help the community comply and improved enforcement of existing legislation, be more effective that pumping even more resources into shiny new laws?

That’s no conspiracy – it’s simply common sense.

Everything is conspiring against you.

Your public is unappreciative; in fact many you deal with are genuine scumbags. Your community is demanding, telling you how to do your job.

The rescue groups in your area aren’t perfect and some are downright painful. People you’ve relied on in the past have let you down. Your volunteers are a lot of work; they get too involved, they make trouble.

The laws in your area make change impossible. Those in authority don’t care.

Your animals are different. Your community is different. Your location makes thing harder. You’re too rural. You’re too urban. Your problems are unique.

Your leadership lacks vision. Your boss is unsupportive. You could lose your job.

You’re under-resourced. You’re understaffed. You’re not sure you have the drive to make this happen. You’re feeling attacked. You’re burnt out. These critics should have to walk a mile in your shoes.

All these things are true.

Now what?

Every community who has ever made the change from killing, to not killing, had ‘insurmountable’ issues. Every shelter who has moved from killing, to not killing, has had people inside and out, telling them the changes were impossible. Every person who has ever driven the change from killing, to not killing, felt at times that they were on their own under impossible conditions.

Every. Single. One.

Working to succeed, despite the things that conspire against you is easily the hardest part of the process, because there might not be solutions. The community will never be perfect. Irresponsible people will always exist. Transport issues will always come up. Funding issues will always be a battle. Laws will always need changing. Poverty will always be a hurdle you face. Some pets will always need help.

Endless reasons to maintain the status quo. People telling you; you’re wrong, it can’t be done, not now, you’re not being realistic, you’re wasting your time. Wanting you to join their pity party about how you have it so impossibly tough.

Ignore them. You have to fight to make the changes anyway.

The animals are counting on you.

In the end none the only thing that can make change in your organisation and in your community is you. Whatever issues you face, you are no better or worse than those who have faced these challenges before you. And they have succeeded.

You are not alone. Join us.

Inspired by Copyblogger’s post today; Everything Will Conspire to Stop You …So What?

I am going to blog out some of the cool webinars and interviews I’ve heard lately. This is from a series of No Kill webinars available for a subscription fee, that is well worth the spend if you are doing any animal advocacy in your community.

‘Getting to No Kill as an animal control center’ was one of the webinars I was looking forward to most, as I found Mitch Schneider incredibly inspirational when I heard him speak last year. No really, in case I wasn’t clear – go. watch. this. webinar.

Reno (Washoe County) takes in more animals per capita than most communities, over two times the national average and roughly 35 animals per 100 people. On top of high animal intake rates, as a tourism based economy it has been very hard hit by the economic downturn and has a high foreclosure rate. Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the entire country. Washoe County has a city with the highest per capita felon rate in the US, and Reno has been named the second drunkest city in the nation. Sound like a place where a No Kill community could thrive? Luckily for the animals, Mitch Schneider, head of Washoe County Regional Animal Services, uses specific policies and practices that have brought Washoe County to having one of the highest live-release rates in the world.

“We like to think of our animal control program as a win/win approach to animal control” ~ Mitch Schneider, head of Washoe County Regional Animal Services

Washoe County Regional Animal Services, pre-No Kill; thousands of animals were euthanised each year. 2 full time staff were euthanising most of the day, they had a freezer full of dead pets (15 barrels full) which the renderers emptied each day. Staff burned out, while the environment was smelly and disgusting. Staff didn’t like to think of what they were doing as ‘killing’. While Mitch didn’t actually believe that with their high abandonment rate and lack of community affluence, that No Kill would work in their community, he wanted to try. He didn’t like the term ‘No Kill’ but didn’t feel that that was a good enough reason to reject the programs and that if they failed, that there would really be no harm done and they would likely be in a better position than they were in.

The hurdles; checking traditional and programmed thinking and re-analysing entrenched beliefs. When thinking ‘outside the box’ you have to realise you don’t have to resolve every issue before you do something (what if’s?), or nothing gets done. Thinking like a business person by becoming outcomes focused; looking to save money, reduce killing, better the image of animal control, improve staff morale (reduce burnout, retraining) and get the animals home!

The importance of Return to Owner (RTO) policies; While Mitch dislikes the term ‘No Kill’, he hates the term ‘dog catcher’. He wanted to overcome the perception in the community that people feel animal control is an enemy to be feared, rather than a resource. He encouraged staff to be proud of getting animals home, rather than impounding them and began promoting the idea that they shouldn’t be punishing people through their pets. He focused his staff on improving RTO rates as they;
- reduce facility needs
- can save millions of dollars in operating costs
- reduce risk (the less animals handled = fewer accidents)
- reduces abandonment (non-collection) by getting pets straight home
- reduces disease in the shelter/less intakes
- reduced killing and lower euthanasia costs
- lowers staff turnover and improves morale

It starts in the field; the goal should not be impoundment, but to return that pet safely home. While it can be more effort on the part of the field officer (door knocking, scanning, checking ID tags, and looking the pet up on the in-car computer), it reduces the workload at the other end of the process (no impoundment, intake exam, vaccination and you don’t have to feed the pet). It enhances customer service as owners are happy to have their pet returned. And it reduces abandonment (non-collection) which can be around 50%, as people fail to collect their animals, fearing fines, or simply not knowing where to look for their pet. There is no RTO service charge, but citations can be written for repeat offenders.

The officers responsibility when collecting a pet;
- call all numbers on ID tags
- scan for chip (have a microchip scanner on board)
- check lost animal reports (via in-car computer)
- door knock local residents
- leave a notice at the address
- return animal to yard, or leave with neighbour or relative

If the pet cannot be returned, on intake;
- rescan for chip
- photograph and list pets on online public database
- recheck ID and call any numbers
- check the address again at a later time

Other proactive programs include;
- they have a team of volunteer ‘pet detectives’ who double check all the work of the animal control officers, and check lost and found pet listings
- they will waive fees if it means reuniting pet and owner
- they offer safe holds for emergencies (owner in hospital or prison)

Benefits; lots of good PR as pets are returned home, rather than killed. This community satisfaction has even lead to bequests. A reduction in negative media saves time and stress as less effort is put into counteracting time consuming citizen’s complaints. Officers are less stressed and have more personal satisfaction, as they receive more positive feedback from the community and more public support. And because the community sees their department as an important community service, they have more compliance with local laws.

You have to market your value; they ran campaigns selling the benefits of their RTO programs (pet protection) and found that people don’t mind buying a dog licence if there is a perceived benefit – your pet will be returned straight home which is convenient, keeps them safe and saves you looking for them. If a dog licence is ‘just another tax’, they will only pay it if you catch them out. Using technology (online pet listings, in-car scanners and computers) meant the program was so successful and popular, cat owners came forward wanting the same benefits for their cats.

They had to recognise that a pet getting out is usually an accident, and while they can punish repeat offenders later with a citation if required, that they shouldn’t be punishing people through their pets as this simply increases abandonment.

Billing; the idea of holding a pet to ransom until the owner can pay in full, simply means that pet is at risk of being killed. It is not customer friendly and doesn’t generate community support. It also leads to increased non-collection of pets, driving up killing. The pet is better off at home, whether or not the owner can pay.

The shelter offers billing, backed up by a collections department. If the owner can or can’t pay, it doesn’t really help either way to kill the pet.

Overcoming resistance;

“We’ve always done it this way” – never justifies anything
“Every day I come in, something has changed” – it takes a desire to better today than yesterday to deal with change. Most resistance is simply laziness.

Trap, neuter, return (TNR) and community cats; the shelter has embraced TNR and is working collaboratively with local community cat groups. This wasn’t always the case, but now the National Animal Control Association and most other groups have moved away from trap and kill programs. Traditonal approaches of trap and kill are costly and ineffective, “it’s a fight you can’t win” as there are simply more ferals than pet cats. They believe that TNR is the humane and common sense approach.

When people inquire they are given information on community cats and the groups that work with them. They have community education programs which include how to live peacefully with community cats (including how to discourage them with sprinklers etc). 90% of people don’t want anything bad to happen to the cat, so are happy to get support and to be given alternatives. This saves the animal being impounded. For the last 10%, who don’t care about the cat or want it removed, they can impound the animal and offer ‘barn cat programs’.

Working with regulations; Mitch says, make sure your regulations support and are in harmony with your mission; have your laws reflect your philosophy. Don’t form your mission around the limitations of the laws. Mandate rescue access laws and collaborate and form partnerships with existing community groups.

Collaboration; working with rescue, which in turn saves taxpayers the money it would cost to euthanise pets. Unless the animal is dangerous, government (the temporary guardians of the animal) should never refuse access to a bona-fide rescue group, or stand in the way of an animal being rescued.

Never stop improving and have a willingness to embrace change. Play well with others and know that you don’t have to resolve every fear before trying something new. Fear, concern and objections will stifle improvement.

A German philosopher once said that all truths go through three phases (paraphrasing);
1) ridicule
2) violent opposition
3) finally acceptance as the obvious

Moving forward; You can’t fix what you don’t measure so keep accurate records. Share this information openly with the public, as the community can’t help you fix what they don’t know is broken and it will take the whole community to fix it.

Summary;
- Return to Owner policies reduce load on the shelter and improve animal outcomes.
- Embrace technology; online photos of impounded pets, scanners in the field, computers in vehicles with access to databases
- Use volunteer pet detectives as a proactive way to reunite pets and owners
- Collaborate with rescue groups and other animal welfare groups
- Provide billing for services; stop holding pets to ransom

Their hard numbers (can also be found on their website); 5,000 – 6,000 animal intakes each year. Including surrenders and community wide, animal intakes are between 15,000 – 20,000 per year. Despite these huge numbers, 91% walk out the front door alive.

About 1,400 of these pets will go straight home. If the non-collection rate averages 50%, than means 700 extra pets that may not have been collected and would need care.




For the full webinar visit; http://www.animalarkshelter.org/webinars/

For even more information on Mitch Schneider’s work visit: Compassionate animal management – how ‘the system’ can be designed to save pets