According to my Baby Connect iphone app (which is awesome btw) I’ve;

- Changed 300+ nappies
- Nursed for more than 100 hours
- Pumped nearly a litre of extra milk (mooo!)
- Learned how to do nearly every household task one handed
- Watched an embarrassing amount of bad daytime TV
- and lost a countless number of hours of sleep tending to my little rugrat.

It has been an amazing, exhausting, exhilarating, rewarding, frustrating and astounding experience. I am in awe of both what my perfectly human body can do with only minimal input from me… and how strong a mummy’s mind has to be to not up and take the next bus out of town.

But I guess they build ‘em cute so you’ll stick around.

I’m so in love <3

From: (prh.net.au)
Subject: Christmas Gift Tree Appeal

Kind regards,

STORE – ORGANISATION
Roselands – Sydney Dog’s Home
Rouse Hill – Paws and Hooves
Parramatta – Animal Welfare League
Mt Druitt – Hawks Repound
Macarthur Square – Campbelltown Pound
Lakehaven – Hunter Animal Shelter
Blacktown – Blacktown Animal Holding Facility
Toombul – Peninsula Animal Aid in Redcliff
Redbank – Peninsula Animal Aid
Mt Ommaney – Animal Welfare League in Ipswich
Browns Plains – QLD Animal Welfare League
Parkmore – Pets and Paws
Southland – Guide Dogs Association
Rosebud – Hastings Pound
Knox City – Pets and Paws
Corio – Pets and Paws
Tea Tree Plaza – Geelong Animal Welfare
Myer Centre – Guide Dogs S.A
Marion – Guide Dogs S.A
Bondi Boutique – Blind Dogs S.A
Bondi Junction – Sydney Animal Shelter
Penrith – Sydney Animal Shelter
Hornsby – Renbury Farm Animal Shelter
Hurstville – Sydney Animal Shelter
Strathpine - Animal Welfare League
Helensvale – Animal Welfare League
Carindale – Animal Welfare League
Karingal – RSPCA Peninsula animal aid in pearcedale
Greensborough – Cat Protection Society in Greensborough
Epping – RSPCA
Inglefarm – RSPCA
Colonnades – Guide Dogs S.A
Rockingham – Rockingham Dog Pound
Midland Gate – S.A.F.E saving animals from Euthanasia

Groups who would like to send feedback to PRH about their inclusion on this list can reach them at marketing@prh.net.au

x
:)shel

Dog Days Photo Blog

This is a combination of both my favourite posts, and some of the animal rescue news items for 2010. I hope you enjoy!

First,

my favourites

If I were to start a charity to help homeless people, take donations from the public and my organisation was called, The Foundation for the Charismatic, Good Looking, Healthy Homeless, I think I’d have some explaining to do. And yet for many in the animal welfare world, their charity model is based on this exact idea; The Foundation for the Easily Rehomed, Well Behaved, Healthy Homeless Pet.

How humans project morality onto dogs in the event of dog attacks. Does our anthropomorphism mean we’re acting out of revenge, rather than dealing directly with the causes of dog attacks?

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.

Even when we can demonstrate clever adoption strategies, outreach and community supporting programs can save all healthy, treatable pets, a burning resentment of the public means these ideas are rejected in favour of ‘blame’. The misanthrope is alive and well in animal welfare.

Why banning pet shop sales, isn’t going to drive people to animal adoption. When you consider the hurdles to adoption, the out of the way locales of most pounds, the inconvenient opening hours and the difficulties in getting pounds to work with their communities, rather than against them – it’s a wonder that any pets get adopted at all.

Animal welfare isn’t big on data – we prefer instead a simple theory; ‘people are irresponsible, and we kill pets because homes can’t be found for them all’.

We can either treat our public like an enemy, or a resource – it’s our choice.

If a national dolphin advocacy group neither furthered the view that wild dolphins deserved protection, nor promoted the science showing why they deserved compassion – in fact they were the biggest killer of dolphins – we would be outraged. However, cat ‘welfare’ groups straddle this ethical divide unashamedly.

‘Resistance’ is how a traditional, high kill pound or shelter defends the status quo when it realises that its community has turned against it.

You don’t build a No Kill shelter by ‘not killing pets’ (although the belief that a shelter’s obligation is to save lives, is definitely at the core), you build it by first reaching out to the community to establish what resources they have that can help you – developing the relationships both inside and outside the industry you need to succeed – and finally calling on the public to take ownership of the mission your organisation has set yourself.

Now, a month by month list of some of the most interesting stories of the year;

January

Blacktown’s god awful bidding process was in the spotlight, with advocates chasing a seemingly common sense group of procedures and policies that could take them to No Kill overnight.

The Lost Dogs Home gave not killing pets a try, only to find the community rallied to save pets. Unfortunately, this new life saving focus was not to last.

Animal welfare groups use ‘a little bit of necessary legislation’ to turn personal beliefs into law, and drive us into a future where owned cats are indoors and outdoors cats are fair game.

The McKinlay Shire Council of north-west Queensland canceled its cat bounty after sightings of rats.

The RSPCA confirm that maverick ‘feral animal’ trappers use inherently cruel techniques to kill the animals they deem unworthy of life.

With mandatory desexing failing to produce lowered kill rates as promised, advocates start making up new theoretical benefits.

Perth cat welfare groups claim certain suburbs need cat laws to make them more ‘responsible’, ignoring evidence that these are also some of the poorest suburbs in the state.

Australian report shows targeted desexing programs as the key to reducing strays and ferals.

United States study shows shelters got dog breed identification right just 4 in 16 times.

February

Invasive Animals chief Professor Tony Peacock says that blowing up rabbits isn’t as inhuman as people might think. Silly people.

Research has shown that 40% of cat owners are secretly feeding a cat they don’t own – rather than tell these people they suck, why not ask them to help us?

‘A pet is for life, not just for Christmas’ slogan came out in 1978 – do we think we could move on, yet?

Melinda and Les Paxton applied to have their puppy farm licence renewed. They had been using the internet to ship puppies nationally, keeping 59 sick, starving and diseased animals in five kennels. They are later raided by the RSPCA.

Pets Paradise seek sponsorship for sick pets, from sick kids.

Unclaimed pets aren’t only dying in pounds, they’re being killed after their owners have come forward to claim them.

2010’s Australian cat management report for the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre, suggests eradication is unrealistic and that cats probably are just one factor amongst lots of really serious factors in native fauna extinction.

March

Senior dog Royce is seized from his home and elderly owner by Blacktown council for being a ‘pit bull’ (Royce had lived without incident as a staffy cross, until the police took him). After a month of impoundment and a professional assessment, council returned him.

In just three years, the ‘Who’s for Cats’ program drives Victoria into record cat impoundments.

Casino (NSW) choose to kill and blame their community for killing, rather than implement programs to stop it.

Michael Linke leads the RSPCA ACT to lifesaving success; “We home a greater percentage of animals than any other open admission Australian shelter and we are influencing dozens of shelters and pounds across Australia and internationally to improve the number of animals homed.”

How the language of animal welfare groups actually confirm the public’s suspicions that rescue dogs are ‘faulty’.

How a few stock photos can change ‘high production kennel’ to wuvvy-dubby dog sanctuary.

Mitcham Council’s cat bylaw passes. The bylaw “aims to reduce feral cat numbers” by targeting owned cats. Perfectly illogical.

The Cat Protection Society of Victoria’s ‘Cat Crisis Coalition’ pushes common and discredited myths in an effort to drive mandatory desexing legislation.

April

While Calgary find unequivocal success in partnering with the community, Australian groups still favour chasing the laws that have failed everywhere.

By vilifying the victims and painting cats as vermin, Australia sees a boom in anti-cat sentiment and violence.

No Kill advocates find their voice; a video from Nathan Winograd and a post on why people aren’t so stupid as to find the concept of No Kill too complex.

The Victorian RSPCA tries to attract people to save homeless pets by telling people how broken and abused they are.

Graeme Smith of the Lost Dogs Home uses an attack by a group of staffies as a chance to condemn the pit bull.

May

The SPCA New Zealand share their ‘Saving Lives’ program – a No Kill blueprint to saving every healthy, treatable pet in the country.

Pets Haven show how you can use social media to save a pet in 2hrs

PEDIGREE announce they’re spending $4 million on promoting homeless dog adoption.

Fraser Coast Council ask their community to help them save pets. The community respond and 79 pets are rehomed in a week.

Bendigo: a case study in cat management

9 out of 10 cats are entering the Logan shelter are unidentified and undesexed (unowned). Despite killing 600 of these unowned cats in three months, the council still blames ‘irresponsible owners’.

The Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science ‘Factors Relevant to Adoption of Cats in an Animal Shelter‘ researched the effects of toys, cage location, and cat characteristics on adoptions.

Mitcham Council (SA, not VIC) is encouraging residents dob in neighbours who own more than two cats or who fail to microchip and register them, as part of the enforcement model for their new cat bylaws. Can we say community friction?

June

Why WA’s new cats laws will mean death for millions of animals.

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

Why research, when you can hate? Cats – an easy target for lazy environmentalists

Free is saving lives. The astounding power of free pet adoption events.

The Victorian Government look to give councils the power to kill impounded dogs, without allowing them the community agreed holding time. This law would later become the basis for their ’shoot to kill’ dog control powers passed in June.

The City of Swan – a case study in cat management (or $243 per cat).

After animal weldaer groups strengthening their cat laws to target ‘unowned’ cats, empowered Queensland cat trappers targeting pets.

Huge success in the ACT thanks to innovative shelter policy, and rather than demand it in other states, animal welfare groups again go after breeders.

Rescue groups tell people that outdoor cats need to be caught and impounded for their own good, then tell the public ‘it’s not our job’ when asked to impound cats.

July

No Kill conference video blog – day 1 in Washington DC.

August

No Kill conference video blog - day 2 in Washington DC.

‘Shelter’ means pound in the US – why this affects our No Kill message.

The Lost Dogs Home again, this time denying that they’re ‘killing’, but are in fact ‘euthanasing’ their animals.

The Cooma-Monaro Shire Council (NSW) has shaken off the excuses and have save 97% of the dogs they impounded.

Solutions, not killing; cat management in New Zealand

September

Offering innovative behavioural rehabilitation for pets is a vital step to modern sheltering. The ‘Pups in Prison’ program gives both inmates and dogs a second chance.

Whyalla Council Pound in SA was under fire for using a gas chamber to kill stray pets with a near 100% kill rate for unclaimed animals. They would later pledge to stop using the gas chamber.

Blacktown Pounds (NSW) starts using ‘Pet of the Week’ adverts and finds the featured dog is adopted immediately after going to print, while cat adoptions increase.

Don’t pretend WA’s cat laws are about saving cats

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

‘People who can’t afford desexing have no business getting a cat’ – yes, but now what?

‘Adoption days’ are a huge hit with the public. How to save 6 dogs in three hours.

The big, fun guide to saving cats this summer

October

The RSPCA Million Paws Walk has been crowned the winner of the Best Charity or Cause Related Event at the Australian Event Awards 2010. Do we really still believe Australia’s don’t care about pets?

Councils continue to be given the blessing of animal welfare groups to trap and kill cats without owners.

The Cat Protection Society of Victoria shows us all how to fail at animal sheltering, with 12,491 intakes and a 91% kill rate. They would later sack the board members who dared question their policies.

Remember the $24 million dollar Macquarie Island cat cull? Turns out indiscriminate poisoning is bad for the environment.

Say it with me; if you want people to adopt your pets, you have to offer more than euthanasia statistics

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

November

An Australian report asks, are ‘unscientific’ temperament tests costing dogs their lives?

The RSPCA Victoria uses a ‘free’ cat promotion to save 110 cats in three days.

Can you ‘dump’ an animal at an animal shelter?

We often hear that the community doesn’t know how to care for pets, that the community has no business in animal welfare and that pets are better of dead than in the hands of the public. These beliefs kill healthy animals.

How does the circle of blame cost cats their lives?

3,101 adopted, 13,594 killed – The Lost Dogs Home stats for the year are in.

Victorian foster care networks save lives in a state where more pets are killed, than rehomed. New codes of practice should be used to cement the rights of these groups to save the lives of pets, pounds are set to kill.

How to make sure your annual animal welfare donation goes to saving lives.

The San Francisco SPCA feature adoptable dogs and cats at Macy’s in San Francisco’s Union Square. Awesome.

December

Understanding who your supporters are needs to be at the core of every piece of information you put out to your public. Do you know who you are talking to?

The Sydney Dogs and Cats Home makes a declaration to life saving and it goes bananas with community support.

Condemning people still getting pets as xmas gifts because of a link to pet abandonment, would be fine… if there were one. But there isn’t. And we know this because people have done actual studies on the factors surrounding pet relinquishment.

Shelters won’t stop the killing, without making provisions for untame cats. There’s no ‘No Kill’ without TNR

The City of Casey’s council pound tender has gone from the RSPCA to the Lost Dogs home. Given the Lost Dogs Home already high kill rate, do shelters need to show a commitment to animals?

In the minds of advocates, cat laws are considered ‘free’, while services to help cat owners obviously cost money. But are cat laws really free?

Cats in the community – my presentation from the Cat Welfare Symposium, and an article in the media advocating that community cats are worthy of compassion, alongside their owned counterparts

Thanks very much for being an advocate for animals and for stopping by Saving Pets. Happy new year!

Romans ‘killed babies at brothel’

Dozens of unwanted babies born during Roman times were murdered and buried on the site of a Roman brothel in Buckinghamshire, archaeologists suspect.

An extensive study of a mass burial at a Roman villa in the Thames Valley suggests that the 97 children all died at 40 weeks gestation, or very soon after birth.

The archaeologists believe that locals may have been killing and burying unwanted babies on the site in Hambleden, Buckinghamshire.

While it seems incredibly brutal to us that newborns would be killed as a form of ‘birth control’, historians claim early Romans believed that babies didn’t receive a soul until they were nearly a year old (a child attempting to speak was a sign that his soul had entered his body) and killing them was widely considered no more evil than slaughtering an animal. (Yes, some of the British history I’ve had over the last week or so has been pretty ick!)

But it did get me to thinking…with the near constant breakthroughs in the areas of understanding how animals think, act and feel, are our future selves going to look back at our time on earth and think it similarly ugly? Will everything we feel we know about animals now turn out to be a vast underestimation of their capacity to value their life, and that we are as a society are just unenlightened about their understanding and awareness?

If we equate ‘consciousness’ to some cognitive stage, then its very easy to see why Romans thought it ok to swiftly end the life of a newborn child through an opiate overdose (or worse). Yet few today would defend infanticide. Could our assumptions that animals don’t have ’souls’ or their lives value, because our culture says they don’t, turn out to be an equally misinformed position?

While it’s unfair to use current knowledge and societal framework to condemn those in history who simply didn’t know better, imagine for one moment what it means if we’re living today, in a similar ignorant absolution. Are we the barbarians of tomorrow?

Sad abandoned cats cause concerns at Quakers Hill

(Cat pic) It’s hard to imagine that a face like this lives off discarded food scavenged from rubbish bins. Sadly, this is the reality for dozens of stray cats who have sought refuge around the Parkway Rd McDonald’s and the Caltex Service Station at Quakers Hill.

Resident Sarah King says Blacktown City Council and the RSPCA seemed disinclined to help so she has launched a petition urging the council to take action against the growing feral cat population.

Ms King and a group of friends plan to trap as many cats as they can and petition the council to find them new homes or destroy the animals humanely.

She said businesses, the council and the RSPCA were caught up in a game of “finger pointing”.

“The response has been pretty appalling, but something needs to be done,” Ms King said. “These cats are starving, carrying disease and living a … horrible life. They keep breeding and it’s getting worse.”

Driving through the area the Advocate saw cats in bins, kittens hiding in the hedges – even remains on the side of Parkway Rd and a carcass in a garden bed.

McDonald’s hired a private firm to remove kittens and adults but numbers are again getting out of hand and they don’t believe it’s their sole responsibility.

[...]
Two RSPCA spokeswomen told the Advocate the cats were not their responsibility and “economic pressure” prevented them taking further action.

Ms King has now lodged a formal complaint with Blacktown City Council who declined the opportunity to comment when contacted by the Advocate.

Fur flies over inaction on cats

Animal lover Chris Lyall says a cat and her four kittens could be buried alive if the bulldozing of four derelict houses on Woodland St, Balgowlah, continues.

The Manly resident said the family of strays has taken refuge under one of the houses with all efforts to rescue them so far unsuccessful.

[...]
Hoping for action to delay the demolition, Mr Lyall contacted Manly Council but claims they are yet to act.

Manly Council general manager Henry Wong said the council was aware of the situation but it was the RSPCA or other animal welfare organisations that were the appropriate bodies to assist with the matter.

The cats’ plight, however, has created confusion, with the RSPCA indicating that the welfare of the mother and her kittens was the council’s responsibility under the Companion Animals Act.

Mr Lyall said the lack of help was frustrating.

[...]
Ellen McGinness, from the Cat Protection Society, said it appeared the issue was being palmed off.

“It should be the council’s responsibility – the RSPCA only deal with owned cats. There is a huge problem with councils not taking responsibility.”

Dogs

Ipswich (QLD) – Confirming that dog attacks often happen in the home, a blue heeler has bitten the nine-year-old girl on the lip. Thankfully, although police were called, the girl’s injuries weren’t life threatening.

Health and Regulation Committee chairman Councillor Andrew Antoniolli said the incident highlighted the importance of parents to supervise their children around dogs.“A good percentage of the dog attacks that we’ve been seeing lately are attacks that are occurring within the dog property,” Cr Antoniolli said.

“It just indicates that at all times you must ensure that you’re vigilant with children and dogs.”

Congratulations to Cr Andrew for his considered response to this attack. All dogs can bite.

Also in Ipswich, the beginning of the fallout from the recent Supreme Court decision that dogs registered as Amstaff’s are actually ‘pitbulls’;

The city’s health and regulation committee chairman Andrew Antoniolli said the redefinition of the American Staffordshire was the result of a drawn-out court case on the Gold Coast.

“We are concerned that we have at least 126 of the 30,000 dogs registered in Ipswich which were identified on their registration as American Staffordshire terriers,” Mr Antoniolli said.

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Mornington Peninsula (VIC) rangers have killed a dog, that had been impounded while its owners built a dangerous dog enclosure;

Ms Clements and Mr Bartling had erected a locked 2m-high cage in their backyard, but had not finished the required roofing and guttering when their pet was impounded.

Four days later they received the devastating phone call.

“They said they had put the wrong dog down,” Ms Clements said.

“They said he was in the fridge and when did we want him dropped down?”

Mr Bartling described Syphon as his best mate and said there was no excuse for the mistake because his pet was microchipped.

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Manningham (VIC) will be getting its first dedicated dog-friendly park from July.

The dedicated dog zone will be fenced off to give pets a safe place to run free off-lead and to socialise with other dogs. The park will also feature drinking water taps for dogs, and extra seating for pet owners.

Cool! Single use, fenced and patrolled parks are vital to the health of the dogs in any community, especially as people’s backyards shrink. Patrols are also vital; not only to ensure that people using the park are doing so in a responsible manner, but as a chance for council animal management to have positive interactions with the pet owning community.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

While the RSPCA ACT have again, showed us the way with this post on their Facebook and Twitter;

The video of the dogs is here:

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Cats

Mitcham Council (SA, not VIC) is encouraging residents dob in neighbours who own more than two cats or who fail to microchip and register them, as part of the enforcement model for their new cat bylaws. Thankfully, some councillors are not convinced;

Cr Grant Hudson told the meeting it was the council’s role to intervene in cat problems, not a neighbour’s job.

“These days a lot of neighbours don’t even know each other and making complaints about pets is one way to create neighbourhood friction where none existed before,” he told the Eastern Courier Messenger after the meeting.

If the bylaw is passed, which will force cat owners to register and microchip their pets from August 1st, the only way to actually enforce the model would be some kind of ‘neighbourhood spy’ campaign. Cats don’t carry their licences in their wallets and those people with ‘too many’ are going to go to ground. So with neighbours dobbing on neighbours and everyone now complaining about that free-roaming cat that no one owns, Mitcham Council animal control is going to be busy! busy! busy! trapping and impounding cats.

The bylaw is set to cost $252,000 for five years. The RSPCA supported the introduction of the bylaw and have accepted a ‘generous grant’ from Mitcham Council to buy cat traps to hire to the public.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

An update on the disastrous removal of feral cats from Macquarie Island.

A team of experts are bound for a remote island equipped with helicopters guns and dogs to eradicate rabbits, black rats and house mice.

The imported species have wreaked environmental havoc on Macquarie Island, a tiny piece of Australian territory halfway between New Zealand and Antartica.

The World Heritage listed island serves as the mating and nesting place of countless penguins, seabirds and seals who are under threat from the pests.

This exercise has been required after parks and wildlife management, removed all the feral cats from the island to save the native seabirds. Unfortunately, the decision allowed the rabbit population to explode and, in turn, destroy much of its fragile vegetation that birds depend on for cover. The resulting “environmental devastation” was estimated to cost $24 million Australian dollars to remedy. Whoopsies.

See another post: ‘Introduced’ doesn’t mean not important

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Shelter news

Wanneroo (WA) has problems with its pound;

Councillor Rudi Steffens said the current facilities were “old and aged”.

“There is still no exercise area for the animals, the kennels are constantly wet through the day and animals are susceptible to cutting their feet on the cages,” he said.

“I don’t believe this facility is standard, I believe it is substandard.”

Councillor Alan Blencowe agreed.

“Six dogs die every day in the City of Wanneroo, that is 2000 dogs per year and we only have one crematorium in the northern suburbs,” he said.

“As a council, we need to be a little bit more responsible than to have these animals’ bodies just being put into landfill.”

You could try not killing them – just a thought.
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And Australia gets its own rescue pet stamps out on the 29th June;

This stamp issue promotes responsible dog ownership and supports the dedicated work of organisations re-homing lost and abandoned dogs.

Their number is significantly boosted by the many other small shelters also re-homing dogs.

Congratulations to NSW Animal Rescue for punching above their weight, being included alongside the RSPCA and Lost Dogs Home.

Saving Pets top five posts for March!

5) Mandatory desexing: why Victoria has it all wrong
4) Three simple actions that will change people’s perceptions of rescue dogs
3) Cats, the same the world over. People… not so much.
2) What does a puppy farmer’s website look like?

and *drum roll*

1) How we got here: a brief history of the ‘Who’s for Cats?’ campaign