Earlier in the year I wrote about the stats coming out of NSW, which showed that not only does dog ‘overpopulation’ not exist in the state, but that small changes in council policy could see shelter killing eliminated overnight. However, the figures I was quoting were being collated by independent groups which can sometimes mean they’re discounted as inaccurate by those pushing the ‘overpopulation’ angle.

But the NSW Government has now made public a hefty set of stats which come directly from council pound records; Analysis of Council Data Collection System for Seizures of Cats and Dogs 2005/2006 to 2009/2010, a complete breakdown of all pound intakes in NSW. It gives a in-depth snapshot into both public behaviour and pound performance, which really does confirm what we knew all along – the biggest predictor of whether a dog will die in a pound isn’t the animals breed, behaviour or the owner’s profile, but simply which pound impounds the pet.

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Less than 10% of dog intakes are surrenders

The average percentage of dogs surrendered according to the report is 9.8%. So the idea the pounds are overflowing with callously dumped pets is simply untrue. What’s more, in all apart from the very largest pounds, the number of intakes of surrendered dogs are only a couple of dozen a month; and really not adding much to the shelter load. Programs which help pet owners keep their pets; community dog training schools, behaviour helplines, dog socialisation opportunities and help for owners who rent, all help cement bonds between pets and owner and could be used to reduce abandonment.

So if the dogs aren’t being surrendered, where are they coming from?

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80% of dog intakes have owners looking for them

The average percentage of dogs returned to owners according to the report is 43%. It is fair to assume those pounds with lower rates (23%, 28%, 30%) do less to reunite pets with owners, than those who have higher rates of reclaims (50%, 52%, 53%).

But what is *really* interesting is the Sydney North entry; 82% of their dogs went home.

So why do Sydney North dogs do so well?

According to the report, the Sydney North entry is made up of; Hornsby, Hunters Hill, Ku-ring-gai, Lane Cove, Manly, Mosman, North Sydney, Pittwater, Ryde, Warringah and Willoughby

The largest council – Hornsby – sends their pets to the Sydney Dogs and Cats Home, a No Kill shelter in Carlton. The rest of the pets (about 60%) are impounded at local vets (Pittwater Animal Hospital, Collaroy Vets, Warringah Animal Hospital, North Shore Veterinary Hospital and Vetfriends Veterinary Practice), while a handful go to Blacktown.

Why is this significant? Because vets have all the proactive procedures we beg pounds to implement; friendly customer-centric animal loving staff,  convenient locations and opening hours and a motivation to reunite pets with owners.

Could it be that the best performing pounds, aren’t pounds at all?

82% is a figure which reflects what we suspected all along; with the right systems in place, the majority of people can be (and want to be!) reunited with their pets. Because their reclaim rate is so high, their kill rate is an inspirational 3% and shows what can be achieved, when those processing pets look beyond killing as a solution.

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When relationships with rescue save lives

Central Coast (made up of Gosford and Wyong) have discovered an efficient way to bring down pound kill rates; do something other than kill. Not only do 53% of dogs go home, more than 12% of them are adopted direct to the public. But what is truly inspiring, is that through relationships with the community 22%, or more than 1 in 5, are released for rehoming by a rescue group.

This has allowed their kill rate to drop to an admirable 8%.

Only once a council puts the excuses for killing aside and start to develop relationships with its community, can the killing end.

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Using smart advertising to save pets

While not a feature of this report, there has been another breakthrough in a NSW pound worth mentioning. Back in January, Camden Council made a commitment to their community’s homeless pets by supporting a year-long trial designed to increase the number of pets adopted from their tendered pound (Renbury). In 2009/10 131 unclaimed cats and 66 unclaimed dogs were destroyed, while only 12 cats and 65 dogs were adopted in the same year.

The approach was two-fold. Four animals should be selected each week to feature in colour weekly  ‘Adopt a Pet’ advertisements in the local newspaper (The Camden Advertiser) to improve awareness of adoptable pets. Council would also pay the $24 a day per animal in accommodation cost to hold the pet up to six days over its impound period.

The proposal was raised by deputy mayor Lara Symkowiak as a way to reduce the killing rate of impounded animals.

“The number of impounded animals is certain to increase due to the dramatic growth in population our [council area] will experience,” she said.

“This campaign is a proactive measure by council to raise awareness of Renbury Farm and promote responsible pet ownership.”

“It would be a fantastic outcome if Camden Council could boast that it does not [destroy] any healthy, re-homeable animal.” ~ Cr Lara Symkowiak

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The program started in January this year.

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By March they were seeing results:

“Renbury Farm staff have told me that the weekly advertising is generating more enquiries and people come into the shelter to view an animal they have seen advertised. In some cases, our advertising has drawn people into the shelter, but the person has ended up adopting an animal that has come from Bankstown, Fairfield or Liverpool council. Although the person has adopted an animal, it is not reflected in our statistics as a “Camden” animal was not adopted. This is still a huge win as it is our advertising that has drawn someone in and an animal has been adopted that would normally have been euthanased. So we are getting wins even though not all of these are reflected in our stats.”
Cr Lara Symkowiak

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And last month:

Camden Council’s Adopt a Pet initiative has had its most successful results yet with not one dog at Renbury Farm Animal Shelter being put down in the first week of June.

Deputy mayor Lara Symkowiak said advertising Renbury Farm’s Adopt a Pet program in the Camden-Narellan Advertiser each week was showing positive results.

“To have that week less than six months into the campaign is good,” she said.

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“Good” is obviously a huge understatement by this awesomely proactive councillor. Not one dog is a kill rate of 0%! The result show that simple, compassionate changes by councils lead to huge benefits for pets and amazing successes like this invigorate staff and the community.

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So what about ‘overpopulation leads to shelter killing’ can we finally put that to rest?

From the stats above we can see that shelter killing can be overcome with the right mix of procedures – so what about ‘overpopulation’? Is there evidence of it within these stats?

Based on the table above we can see that 48,321 dogs were processed by pounds over the year. While this includes the majority of intakes by major animal welfare groups (RSPCA, AWL NSW, SDCH etc), there would be a percentage of pets going direct to community rescue groups. This would not be a high number however, as most groups are only able to take on limited private surrenders.

According to last year’s Contribution of the Pet Care Industry to the Australian Economy (2010), there are 1.1 million dogs living in NSW. That means less than 5% of dogs are using pounds or shelters. If half of them are collected by their owners, just 2.5% of dogs are needing to be rehomed each year.

Christie Keith introduced a new concept with her recent blog post at Pet Connection; ‘low hanging fruit’

She suggests that we’ve got desexing rates to a rate of saturation;

Although there are places in the country where there’s still a good amount of lifesaving potential in increasing spay/neuter accessibility and prevalence, in most communities, we’ve already harvested the low-hanging fruit. Most pet dogs and cats are already spayed or neutered, and spending huge resources chasing down the tiny number who aren’t is going to result in ever-dwindling returns, particularly when it’s done at the expense of better sheltering and better adoption, as is so often the case.

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And that now our energies need to be turned to those areas where we can make huge percentage increases; ensuring lost pets are going home, and that pounds are either rehoming unclaimed pets, or are supporting rescue groups to save them.

It would take a very small increase in that rate — to save the lives of every healthy pet, as well as every pet with a treatable or manageable health or behavior problem, in every shelter.

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‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who only sends 20% of pets home. ‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who blocks access to rescue groups. ‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who refuses to open at times that allow working families and adopters to visit. ‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who refuses to list lost pets online, or keep lost pet databases. ‘Low hanging fruit’ is the pound who refuses to advertise available pets in local media in a positive way.

If we put as much effort into pursuing ‘Low hanging fruit’ in our own communities and at our local pound, as we do in beating the ‘desexing’ drum, the ‘anti-impulse buy’ drum, then we could make enormous inroads into saving lives.

Once above scrutiny and allowed to hide behind a plethora of excuses for poor performance, today’s pounds and shelters are being held accountable to provide the community’s pets a healthy animal management system.

This new level of answerability is never more evident than when animal lovers join together to develop solutions for their local companion animal issues, only to find that their council pound has been killing nearly every. single. one. of the unclaimed animals they were encharged to care for. Deeply entrenched in a culture which blames the public & absolving themselves of even the most basic responsibility in saving lives, these underperforming shelters buck the trend of compassion and instead choose to kill behind close doors. That is, until the community finally understands the premise of the No Kill model & stands up to apathetic management & heartless local council policies.

It’s hard to hide in the internet age; it’s nearly impossible to keep secrets from an empowered community. More and more it’s backlash from the public driving the change that for decades has failed to materialise.

Rockhampton’s slaughterhouse

Rockhampton (QLD)’s pound has a problem with flooding, and a problem with pets being stolen, and a problem with parvo and a problem with facilities being a run down pile of crap:

“As far as the location of the Rockhampton city pound, it is in a flood prone area beside the sewage treatment works and it’s not a very nice location,” says (Councillor Tony Williams). (ref)

But mostly they have a problem with animals ending up dead;

(Compliance officer Chris Phillips) admitted just 11% of cats survive a spell at the pound and during April only seven of the hundreds of animals taken to the pound were rehoused by the council.

Council killed 300 of the 436 pets impounded in the month of March alone, but it’s not their fault – obviously – the killing is the public’s fault;

… several councillors used a debate this week to blame society. Cr Cherie Rutherford said it was disturbing to see what little regard people had for animals and Cr Graeme Brady said everywhere you went in Rockhampton wandering dogs were a problem. (ref)

Cr Tony Williams said the problem was that some people treated pets as a disposable item. “Pets are for life, not just three months, but sadly not everyone sees it that way,” he said. (ref)

And the killing most certainly has nothing to do with the pound being open for adoptions one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon and lost pets only being held for 72hrs before being destroyed.

After receiving a bollocking by the community’s pet lovers and the local media “…meetings were held between RSPCA, Capricorn Animal Aid, and Council to look at improving rehoming rates.”

Ironically, only because of backlash by the same ‘irresponsible public’ so quickly condemned by Council, is the pound being held accountable. For the first time in decades, pets may given the chance to survive an interaction with the pound.

Parkes Shire Council unashamedly killing

Just four hours out of Sydney, Parkes Shire Council Pound has a problem; they get in one pet a day and gosh darn it, they have to kill it;

Parkes Shire Council has expressed concern regarding the number of dogs and cats being impounded and euthanized on a weekly basis within the district.
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Last month a total of 28 dogs and six cats were impounded of which 26 were destroyed.

Despite a requirement in the NSW code of practice for pounds & shelters to make an effort to rehome healthy pets, Parkes’ remarkable effort to kill just about every pet that comes through their doors is explained away simply in their annual report;

“Council does not have any practical alternative available to rehome dogs and cats. During 2009/10 no dogs or cats were rehomed.”

108 cats and 337 dogs were killed in the 2009/10 financial year. Given its very hard to adopt a dead animal, these guys were never given a chance.

After the plight of pets being highlighted in the media, there was outrage from the Parkes’ community. Parkes Council was unrepentant – it’s the ‘irreponsible owners’ dontchya know?

Parkes Shire Council wants the state government to conduct a public awareness campaign highlighting the obligations of owners.

Pressure on Blacktown pound turn the wheels of change

Early last year the repulsive Blacktown Pound (NSW) ‘bidding’ process and pound procedures came under the scrutiny of the local community. Not only were small desirable breeds being sold undesexed to the highest bidder (often breeders who could recoup costs from selling pups), but potential adopters were being sent away empty handed when their bids were unsuccessful. Despite dozens of bidders on some animals, in 2008, 1419 dogs and 3146 cats were put down at the council facility.

Thanks to persistent public pressure, the council is now looking to make significant changes to their operating procedures;

Blacktown councillors voted to adopt recommendations made in two reports about pound operations and policy.

Former veterinarian and RSPCA boss Mark Lawrie compiled the reports, which say the desexing of animals given new homes may reduce the number of unwanted offspring returned to the pound.

Dr Lawrie says the tender system, which requires prospective pet-owners to outbid each other, should be changed to a fixed-price system.

He also said pound buildings and animal housings are run-down.

Dr Lawrie’s reports said it would cost a lot, but that newer facilities should be built.

Advocates will be watching with interest to see if Council implement the changes as recommended, or continue to allow thousands of pets to be killed unnecessarily while potential families flock to more cooperative sources of pets; pet stores and trading post breeders.

Don’t stop fighting

In the US, where animal welfare reform is well and truly underway, animal control agencies are slamming door on public scrutiny. We’d do well to learn from their experiences;

FixAustin.org’s Ryan Clinton, who has seen his community go from killing the majority of its homeless dogs and cats to saving more than 90 percent of them for six months in a row this year, sees such activism as democracy at its best.

“It should be uncontroversial that an agency doing the work of the people, and paid for with the people’s hard-earned money, should reflect the will of the people,” he said.

“But too often, animal-control agencies facing calls for reform behave more like authoritarian regimes than arms of a democracy, circling their wagons, deflecting blame, and becoming less rather than more transparent.”

He said the only reason any organization would take such actions is that it assumes the animal-loving public will give up.

“While that does happen in some places,” he said, “in others the public only fights harder. I think the lesson from Austin is that if a community of animal lovers fights inhumane sheltering practices long enough, smart enough and tough enough, that community can prevail.”

And we will prevail here in Australia too.

Coming soon; good news for pets – pounds who save lives

See also: How to save 110 pets in three days

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about my time off (apart from the sweet, sweet smell of baby neck!) is getting to watch the snowballing of compassion, as pet lovers and animal welfare advocates join forces like never before. Where the voices speaking up for the rights of shelter pets were once only a few ‘crazy’ fringe pioneers, now the myths and mantras which justified killing for convenience are being rejected by the community at large.

Sides are being drawn; those who seek to continue to kill, hiding behind apologetic slogans of ‘overpopulation’ and continuing to browbeat an ‘irresponsible public’. And those who seek to embrace the resources of the community’s pet lovers, championing the core belief that a new home is a better outcome for a pet, than death in a shelter. The community is speaking up for animals, fighting to overcome the inertia of many pounds in implementing proactive redemption, rehabilitation and rehoming programs. Thanks to this movement, the future is looking bright for Australian pets.

RSPCA ACT continue to lead to way

The RSPCA ACT have released their annual statistics, saving an inspiring 94% of dogs and 65% of cats. Their secret? Attitude!

“Despite the economic down turn and an increase in demand across all services, we just continue to improve. I am incredibly proud of our team.” ~ Michael Linke

Challenging the myth of ‘faulty’ pets

When Geelong Animal Welfare Society (GAWS) was approached by its community to work to reduce their high kill rates, their response was that the animals were dying because they were simply ‘not adoptable’.

“The animals we put down are not rehomeable,” Dr Walter said. “We are not like a pet shop, some of these dogs will have attacked people.

… these cats cannot be re-homed, they will rip your arm off.”

This may have seemed plausible until you consider the organisation killed 852 dogs and rehomed just 487 (they also ‘misplaced’ 217 dogs), and killed 2,426 cats, rehoming just 546.

The organisation is accused by protesters of refusing to implement proactive programs promoting adoption, refusing to working with community rescue groups, refusing to list pets online and acting in a hostile fashion to potential adopters. The community’s animal management problems are exasperated by the organisations support of draconian laws, which predictably drove up impounds.

While GAWS management are resentful of such attention – they have been killing without consequence for decades and wish desperately that their community would just butt out – the saga continues with the latest annual report revealing the organisation declared $2.3 million in financial assets in 2010.

GAW’s community is getting wise that they are not to blame for the organisation’s poor performance in saving lives and that the high kill rates are out of sync with how they want homeless animals to be treated. In short, the community are fighting for the animals, while the animal ‘welfare’ group who should be, fights for the right to keep killing. An abhorrent contradiction.

Community members who would like to join the push for an improvement of services at GAWS can join the Geelong Animal Care Facebook group.

Community push for compassion

With their name rapidly become synonymous with high kill rates, The Lost Dogs Home found itself the focus of locale media;

Pound kill rate sparks concern – THE AGE

A Lost Dogs Home plan to take over the running of more council pounds has alarmed animal welfare groups, who say the strategy will lead to more dogs and cats being killed.

The home has won three council contracts from rival RSPCA Victoria and has plans to take over more pounds as well as expand interstate.

The home has won contracts with Casey, Hobsons Bay and Echuca councils by tender from the RSPCA over the past two years and now runs 17 council pounds in Victoria.

But animal welfare groups have criticised the home’s growth strategy because of its high kill rate of impounded animals.
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City of Casey spokesman Chris Ryan said tenders were called for all contracts valued at more than $150,000. The Lost Dogs Home was awarded the council’s pound contract, held by the RSPCA for the past 15 years, in December and will begin services on June 1.

Showing just how out of step they are with modern sheltering initiatives, the group blames both the community and the animals themselves for the fact so many pets fail to survive impoundment;

(Lost Dogs’ Home managing director Graeme Smith) ”We’re getting five to six owners per week refusing to come in and collect (their pets). It’s a syndrome that needs some addressing.”

Smith says the high number of dogs deemed not suitable for a new home reflects the area the shelter covers where there are more dangerous and restricted breeds of dogs.

”We have a council in the City of Melbourne that is hot to trot in making sure that we do the right thing and doing the right thing is not rehousing a dog that is going to go out and kill a neighbour’s dog or savage a kiddy,” says Smith. ”I’ve been someone who has been very strong on that.”

It’s worth remembering that this organisation adopted 3,101 pets and killed 13,594 and continues to fail to put animal welfare first, expanding their operations at the expense of animals and failing to reunite pets with owners.

Pounds may not be responsible for the pet ending up in care, but what happens next is completely in their hands. With the LDH refusing to modernise or work with local breed clubs, foster carers & rescue groups to maximise life saving, the community has the right to & should be demanding better. Killing pets while blocking these community relationships is no longer tolerable.

The community demands better for Victorian shelter pets

With the blessing of major shelters working to maintain control of valuable animal control contracts, the Department of Primary Industries proposed a highly restrictive new Code of Practice to become the blueprint for rescue in the state.

However, in a fantastic win for pets, the government listened to community feedback (over 500 submissions and more than 2,500 signatures in the PetRescue recommendation) and made significant changes to the original proposal. These changes allow shelters to work freely with foster carers and removed restrictions which forced shelters to kill pets after arbitrary time limits.

Not only does the new Code of Practice acknowledge the vital and significant contribution community rescue and foster care groups make in the modern animal sheltering model, it obligates high kill shelters to fully implement comprehensive foster care programs to save all healthy and treatable pets. A huge thank you to everyone who contributed in standing up for homeless pets and the amazing rescuers working to save them!

Busting myths

Rather than the usual suspects busting out tired old mantras of an ‘uncaring and irresponsible public’, new animal welfare players are finally being given the chance to spread the No Kill message, showing the community how to build a better future for pets. Vix from PetRescue was given the opportunity to discuss companion animal management on the 7PM Project recently. She used the opportunity to discuss modern sheltering practices and the innovative programs which are ensuring pound and shelter pets get a second chance at happiness.

Congratulations to Vix for such a groundbreaking interview.

Must attend conference announced

Continuing the theme of the new generation of inspired and inspiring animal welfare advocates leading the way in animal sheltering practices, the rock star line up for this year’s NDN has been announced.

Some of the international guests include:

- Richard Avanzino (President Maddie’s Fund USA)
Read more about Richard

- Robyn Kippenberger (CEO RNZSPCA NZ)
Read more about Robyn

- Bob Kerridge (Executive Director SPCA Auckland & National President, RNZSPCA)
Read more about Bob

- Mitch Schneider (Director Washoe County Animal Management Services USA)
Read more about Mitch

& Dr Jeff Young (DVM Planned Pethood Plus USA)
Read more about Jeff

And a host of amazing local speakers including;

- Michael Linke (CEO, RSPCA ACT)
Presenting; Change for the better

- Corinne Alberthsen & Jacqui Rand (University of Qld)
Presenting: What can 191,000 cats tell us about saving lives?

- Dr Kate Hurley (Director Shelter Medicine Program UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine)
Presenting: Feline Health in Shelters and Pounds Workshop

- Kate Mornement (Monash University)
Presenting: Behavioural Assessment Research

and Mike Bailey (Good for Dogs), Saskia & Meaghan Adams (Fundraising extraordinaires!), Tim Rickman & John Bishop (Pedigree Adoption Drive/PetRescue), Christine Yurovich (Cat Alliance of Australia) and Cathy Craw & Geoff Clarke (Tasmanian Canine Defence League).

For more information and to reserve your seat, visit: The National Desexing Network Conference page