Pet industry association (PIAA) tactics to ‘gain respectability’…

We know that the Pet Industry Association is desperate to increase their membership dollars from pet shops (note: only a relatively small proportion of pet shops across the country are members, and yet the government of NSW still takes “advice” from PIAA).

 We know that they have engaged the services of one of Australia’s top PR agencies to advance their cause and ‘fight” the publicity gained by Clover Moore’s proposed Animal regulation of Sale Bill.

 We know that PIAA have joined in a collaborative program with the well known magazine “Dogs Life” (does anyone know of a similar initiative with cats?).

 Dogs Life Magazine and PIAA have embarked upon an annual publicity competition to recognise and reward winners in a number of categories. There are a number of pet shop specific categories, but it also includes:

 “The Dogs Life Pet People’s Award for Best Local Pet Rescue Service/Animal Shelter” 

 We were staggered to see “animal rescue” as one of the categories of this competition!!! PIAA (who stimulate and support the marketing and push of huge numbers of puppies and kittens into the market via pet shops) recognising animal rescue groups (who have to sweat 24/7 to rescue from deathrows across the country).

 Is this for real?

 Sadly it is. And sadly, many uninformed readers of Dogs Life Magazine will unwittingly associate PIAA with animal rescue efforts.

We expect that all animal rescue groups would  be disgusted.

One well known Victorian Rescue group who were asked if they could be nominated replied publically:

“Rescued With Love nominated for award but says “no thanks”

Rescued With Love has been nominated for an award which is always an honor.  This time it is for The Dogs Life Pet People’s Award for Best Local Pet Rescue Service/Animal Shelter. 

While Rescued With Love is happy with the recognition we are receiving, the Award is with Dogs Life Magazine in conjunction with the Pet Industry Association of Australia (PIAA). 

The PIAA represents Petshops throughout Australia and  they have been extremely vocal in their stance of protecting  the practice of selling puppies in petshops (they were the main opposition to Clover Moore’s Bill to cease the sale of animals in Petshops last year). 

These puppies are of course provided by puppy millers who keeps scores of dogs in cages to breed for their babies.  Rescued With Love is against all forms of puppy milling, backyard or indiscriminate breeding while hundreds of thousands of dogs die every year in our pounds and shelters. 

It would be hypocritical to accept this nomination on ethical grounds from the PIAA, and so we will not be taking up the offer. 

While we are not the biggest nor the most financial animal welfare group we certainly will stand up for what we believe Rescue should be about and that is the plight of companion animals at every level in society.” 

DRP Comment:

 We will take a guess at which Rescue organisation will win this year’s prize – we anticipate the same as last year, (….. the only Rescue group that is actively a PIAA member…….)

Actions you can take:

 Write to the Publishers of Dogs Life Magazine, expressing your dissatisfaction with the arrangement of Dogs Life supporting the puppy and kitten trade in this way.

Janice Williams, Associate Publisher, Universal Magazines

 Janice’s email address is jwilliams@universalmagazines.com.au, or you can post any letters to Locked Bag 154 North Ryde NSW 1670.

University of Queensland/RSPCA $25,000 scholarship to improve marketing of rehomable animals

“UQ Business School honours student Christilene du Plessis has been awarded a $25,000 RSPCA Qld Scholarship to help in the search for an ethical way to find homes for Queensland shelter animals. Read more here

The one-off scholarship, financed by the Petcare Information Advisory Service (PIAS), will fund Ms du Plessis’ market research as part of RSPCA Qld’s one-year trial selling refuge animals through commercial pet shops…”

DRP Comment:

The scholarship money is provided by the Pet Care Advisory Service to the University of Qld…… which is doing the overview of the rehoming of RSPCA pets within pet supply stores.

This Pet Care Advisory Service seems to be funded by Mars.  Interesting they’ve handed over money which will directly benefit shelter dogs.  

http://www.petnet.com.au/about.asp

Yuur thoughts?

The curse of Christmas…….

“I’m a volunteer and committee member for an organisation call K9 Dog Rescue near Mandurah Western Australia. We’re fully volunteer operated and donation funded. We are currently licensed to hold 40 dogs, but we hover around the 28-30 on average.  Last year we found homes for over 700 pound dogs, and we collect from the local pounds on Mondays and Wednesdays, usually taking in 10-12 dogs a week (excluding puppies).

After Christmas, this year our office was swamped with calls from people wanting to surrender Christmas dogs. We’re talking 2 weeks afterwards. Some of the other people came and just dumped dogs on our doorstep.

One story I can tell you: There was a young idiot there one day waiting with a puppy, it was the last of a litter of 11 (obviously the runt), that he hadn’t been able to sell over Christmas obviously. He wanted us to take it. The office staff asked him if he was going to get his dog steralised now…………. “NO! I want another litter” was his reply.  

Honestly, this is what we are dealing with.”

DRP Comment: this true story just highlights the attitude of irresponsible back yard breeders

If you faced this individual, what would you say to him?

The numbers continue to increase…….. 2007-2008 NSW pound statistics available

We’ve just completed a summary of all the available pound and shelter statistics for NSW. As predicted by rescue groups, the number of animals entering pounds has increased yet again, from 118,558 in the previous year, to 126,004. Total animals killed was up from 56,531 to 63,651…..and that figure doesn’t include the greyhound population, so you can add a few thousand more to that figure. Download the summary figures here…..

It beggars belief that DPI Minister Ian MacDonald has this to say “A great deal of progress has been made recently on the issue of welfare of animals in pet shops and the government is ensuring that there will be ongoing improvements in pet breeding activities. Consequently the NSW Government does not support an inquiry into the pet industry” (Read more here…)

CEO Kristina Vesk of the Cat Protection Society says this:

 ”We knew it was a disaster but looking at the numbers, the scale is just enormous.

We can’t measure how many cats were ‘dumped’ but we imagine it was considerable seeing the enormous increase in cats taken to pounds and shelters. And I hate to say it, but we think that there are people who kill kittens and cats ’at home’ (ie not taking them to the vet to be euthanased but doing things like drowning litters of kittens).

The outcome for cats is always worse than for dogs.

From the figures, this means 39% of dogs entering pounds are euthanased versus 68% of cats. It is interesting too, that more cats are taken to RSPCA, AWL & CPS than pounds – I am not surprised. Councils seem to feel obliged to ‘deal’ with dogs (fearing the reaction around dangerous dogs etc) but often tell people that they ‘can’t do anything’ about cats.

This means that they push the ‘cat problem’, and the cost of dealing with it, onto charities. Reasons people gave for bringing cats to us and not their pound included being directed to do so by their council (rather than even telling people what their local pound was) or the pound insisting on payment of a fee that people either could not or would not pay. 

Hence we have ended up with a record number of cats that there simply weren’t homes or room for. And we ended up deficit funding just trying to manage the situation. As I said, no more. We can’t afford to act as a de facto pound for all of Sydney’s poor homeless cats. At the end of the day though, the outcome for the cats is the same. Too many cats + not enough homes = a death sentence.

 We have written to the Minister for Local Government pointing out that councils are contributing to feline overpopulation by releasing undesexed kittens from pounds (7 of 14 we surveyed do this). They include the cost of desexing in the price, but rely on people to go back some time later to the facility or a vet to have the cat desexed (typically advising this be done at 5-6 months). Too late! Those kittens can already have kittens of their own (and typically do). Early age desexing has been safely practised for more than 20 years – what are these pounds doing?

Kristina Vesk, CEO, Cat Protection Society NSW

DRP Comment: So what progress has the NSW Department of primary Industry actually made…..that will stop the killing?

What do you think of the progress Government has made this year? Should we invite Government Ministers to be the ones to make the decision as to who lives and who dies next Friday??

If you live in States outside of NSW, can you tell us what you know about the numbers in your State?

Designer pup going cheap…….

Email forwarded to us, Feb 11 2009

Subject: Very Cute Designer Dog Puppy Going Really Cheap, February 2009

Guys, apologies to everyone  for sending a general email like this, but it’s a matter of life and death.

 There’s a little guy called “Frankie” who’s at the Dee Why Pet Shop. My eldest daughter has puppy-sat him a couple of weekends.

And Frankie, who’s been in the pet shop for a couple of months is on his last legs – if he’s not sold this week he goes to the pound – and we all know what that’s likely to mean. Read more here….

DRP Comment: the pet shop industry are fond of telling us just how well they take care of their animals. So what exactly happens to the ones they can’t sell? What would you like to say to Frankie?

Public parliamentary inquiry news…..

Text from Fix NSW Animal Policy:

Last week a call for a Public Parliamentary Inquiry into the Pet Industry was put forward by Senator Ian Cohen after a massive public outcry in the SMH, the nation’s top newspaper.

 So why a public parliamentary inquiry?

The public want the facts. NSW deserves a full solution that encompasses all aspects of the supply chain and makes recommendations towards a total solution, not just window dressing.

The inquiry was announced in the SMH here ….  

The Pet Industry has naturally knocked back the inquiry, stating that a specialist review would be enough. Given that the majority of specialists either work for/are members of the Pet Industry, an inquiry under oath in a formal parliamentary setting is more appropriate. Then we can be sure of a transparent and formal process with the full accountability and recognition of all the agencies and organisations involved.

There is too much money and self interest involved in this problem to allow a secret review. .the estimated $60 million dollars that that charities, the NSW government and the taxpayer pays every year on this issue far outweighs the cost of an inquiry (which, by the way, is largely free . . .  committee’s are already formed and paid for . . that’s all they do)

Council workers, pounds, volunteers and the NSW tax payer need greater support on this problem, estimated to be costing as much as $60m a year. The inquiry will finally gather solid information that the NSW Government can use to make business decisions to fix NSW Animal Policies and heal the system.

visit the CatRescue Blog at http://www.catrescue.com.au/blog
visit http://www.fixnswanimalpolicy.com 

NSW pound workers deserve better support, Rangers deserve better support, Vets and Vet Nurses are tired of the sickness of mass bred animals. The volunteers and charities that are going broke trying to desparately solve this problem need you.

CatRescue NSW Limited
www.catrescue.com.au

DRP: tell us what you think!

How do you think an independent Inquiry will help? Who do you think will seek to avoid it?

Pet Industry blocks suburban animal rescue centres

For  Immediate Release – Sydney, January 18th 2009      From: CatRescue NSW

Pet Industry blocks suburban animal rescue centres-
“Industry claims community rescue centres will impact pet shop profits”

Sydney NSW. The NSW Pet Industry has knocked back a proposed idea to allow council and community groups to set up small suburban rehoming centres for abandoned animals as they see it would compete with the profits of Pet Industry members, says CatRescue, the group who have pitched the idea.

The program, which is part of a 10 point plan proposed by CatRescue to help address Pet Overpopulation, came about after reviewing similar successful programs in other parts of Australia and around the world.

“The problem is that council pounds are located literally miles away from the general public, in the bush. They are open very odd hours and aren’t exactly good rehoming. Whilst you are interviewing a potential new home, three more people are waiting in a queue behind you to dump their poor sick animals”

“Our proposal is to use some of the Companion Animal Fund, the money that is set aside to reduce the problems of animal overpopulation, and work with council to set up suburban rehousing stations, that way we can have better access to people. Similarly, community groups will get onboard and assist in driving people, information and support to the rehousing station”

“They wouldn’t compete with Pet Shops as all we do is find new homes for animals, in fact, any smart pet shop owner would partner with the program and get the flow on product revenues”

But PIAA’s newsletter, “Pet News” has come out in angry opposition, claiming the idea is part of a socialist policy driven by PETA aimed at “destroying private industry and replacing it with government run stores “. “The Australian puppets of PETA should decide what their ultimate intention is” it said in it’s Jan 14th publication

“I don’t know what they are on about” said CatRescue. “We wouldn’t know a PETA person if they walked up in the street and bit us, all we want to do is find homes for thousands of dumped animals, no conspiracies, just getting the job done”

CatRescue and a number of other members of the Community program are pursuing the program nonetheless, with the first proposed rehousing station likely to open early this year.

More information contact Derek Knox or Kelly Lachman at CatRescue