How would you feel having to hand in a small friendly 4 week old kitten to certain death?
“we knew it had no hope…we rang everyone…can you take this kitten? …it got put down”
Implementing FREE desexing made an impact
In 2013 at Banyule Council Victoria, Jenny an Animal Mangement Officer, initiated a major step in improvements for caring for abandoned and owned cats in their council area. They promoted and helped introduce a program to not just encourage but offer free desexing to residents, based on the AMOs’ etc experiences of the numbers of cats and kittens needing help. This program has made a real impact in reducing the tsunami of kittens being born each year, too many kittens evolve into abandoned or surrendered cats and kittens to the pound, where a significant number are euthanised especially when the council pound reaches capacity.
How it started & evolved
The initial first wave (project) of the program commenced with the RSPCA mobile clinic offering free desexing for a targeted area of residents. This included microchipping and running courtesy buses from residents’ locations for pickup and drop off the cats, with a follow up to remove stitches etc. . The first two waves of this program targeted hot spot suburbs, where many cats were known to not be desexed.
The next wave (project) involved 2 private vet clinics and dissolvable stiches, so AMOs didn’t have to stress cats 10 days later. This was then opened to all residents of Banyule.
Jenny and the team noticed that surrenders and stray cat complaints along with cat intakes started to rise again, even though these offers were being taken up, and desexing of the cats continued. Their focus returned to the target area again, by letterbox dropping flyers, speaking to residents and promoting on social media.
Jenny ran two ongoing programs:
a) free desexing available for residents
b) a community cat research program, focusing on converting semi owned cats into fully owned members of the family in conjunction with the Australian Pet Welfare Foundation
Results!
Since 2013, these programs have been significantly cost effective offering value for money to the council and the ratepayers 🙂 Around $63k has been spent over these years with nearly 800 cats desexed etc.
The cat pound increasing fee’s per cat gained a negotiation of 200 free cat desexing’s, also including chipping and registration. 75 of the 780 cats have been desexed for free and are not included in the $63,000.
This is a highly successful program just based on the financials. On average less than $100 per cat has been spent. This has been financially supported by Banyule council and has an ongoing budget for free cat desexing. However, this has been a hugely more valuable outcome than a council pound dealing with more surrenders, the costs of euthanasia and the emotion and metal stress for the Animal Management Officers, shelter staff and vets.
The other major outcome has been limiting kittens born each year. Just rounding the figures of the cat desexed, will equate to 400 less breeding pairs, possibly birthing 2 litters per year of say 5 kittens each time = 4,000 kittens NOT being born each year!
What a change!
The work at Banyule council continues, and there is a much more satisfaction from team roles by completing proactive actions, instead of just sending cats and kittens to their chance of rehoming versus death at a council pound.
Jenny indicates that they felt like “we were just depressed overpaid pet killing taxis” prior to this program.
The council fully supports these programs: these programs benefit the cats, their owners, the council teams, the council’s $ bottom line, and the community as a whole.
Jenny has found new opportunities and works collaboratively with other organisations, to share knowledge and experiences, and continue the promotion of the effectiveness of FREE and intensive desexing of cats.
Renting with pets is rarely easy, you have your pet to consider, your landlord, and the neighbours to appease, and also to conform to shared rules if you are in a strata complex.
However, many of these needs, which initially looks like from a diverse group are generally satisfied by the foundations of being a responsible pet owner. Keeping your pet healthy (fed, clean & safe), happy (active and not bored), and not being a nuisance to neighbours.
Firstly, understand what the legal requirements & obligations are for a tenant, a landlord, and if needed a strata management committee.
We recommend two sources of information: firstly the NSW Office of Fair Trading. Check their web site, and it also includes sections on tenants with pets in a strata.
See “By-laws in your strata scheme” and how they may be changed.
Also look at “Major changes to strata laws” (which were made in November 2016) and this section includes a subsection on “Strata reform myth busters”.
This contains the myth that “Strata buildings cannot ban pets” – something misunderstood by many.
The second source we strongly recommend is from the Law Society, rather than trying to interpret the laws yourself.
Only a few pages long, read the guide from the NSW Young Lawyers also on “Keeping Pets in Strata Schemes”.
They have included a few “above the norm” suggestions.
Understanding your obligations, we suggest that you start building a Pet Resume for your loved little ones, and have that ready for when you next move.
See our checklist.
Also consider Added-Value options to include in your pet’s resume.
Some suggestions to consider:
If you have a dog, how often do you exercise him/her?
does your dog go to a day-care or trainer?
do you have a reference from them?
if you have a cat, are you committed to keeping your cat inside or in an outdoor enclosure and definitively inside at night?
if you have a cat, do you provide plenty of cat scratching posts?
do you arrange for pet sitters? is this a professional organisation?
are you open to your landlord meeting your pet? or do you have any videos to share to show the personality & behaviour of your pet, especially when interacting with people?
Then, the rest is common sense, and making sure your pet has plenty to keep it active, not bored nor anxious.
Ensure you can effectively monitor and respond when there are any problems when you are out and your pet is home alone.
It is better to put your efforts into setting up and maintaining a good neighbour & a responsible owner approach then the effort into legal or tribunal disagreements.
The good experiences you have will also play-it-forward to other
future pet owners being accepted in more rented homes.
LRC 