RESCUED WITH LOVE INC.

A few of us had the pleasure of meeting Joy Verrinder and the girls at AWL Qld when they hosted us for the AWL conference last October on the Gold Coast.  What a remarkable and wonderful group of people they are, now running their facility as a towards no kill shelter and doing the hard yards to make sure the community is doing it's bit too.

Here is an article from the Gold Coast Paper recently. 

GOLD Coast pet owners will need a licence if they want their dog or cat to have a litter, under proposed new regulations slammed by pet shop owners as 'mandatory desexing by stealth'.

The City Council intends to introduce permits to target backyard breeders and cut the number of unwanted kittens and puppies.The State Government-backed pilot program could be adopted statewide.

Pet Industry Association state co-ordinator Paul Westaway slammed the scheme which requires permit holders to desex kittens when they sell them or give them away. Puppies will escape the snip.

"It's mandatory desexing by stealth," said Mr Westaway, a member of the stakeholder group that developed the plan."It is impinging on people's rights."

Animal Welfare League strategic development officer Joy Verrinder, who led the stakeholder group, said cats intended for breeding would be exempt from desexing

.The scheme would reduce the euthanasia of 4000 cats and dogs on the Gold Coast each year, she said.Breeders and pet owners alike would have to apply for a permit if they wanted their animals to breed, and comply with an animal welfare code of practice.

If the permit plan is approved at the council's Monday meeting, it will go out for public comment and is expected to come into force mid-year.

The Pet Industry Association of Australia (PIAA) are the governing body who help Petshops in Australia and promote the selling of puppies and kittens in petshops, the practice being highly lucrative, in the tens of thousands of dollars worth for the petshops.  They are now crying impingement on people's rights, yet fail to consider any 'animal rights' or take responsibility for selling pets to unsuitable homes, or as impulse buys.

In 2002 up to 4000 animals lost their lives on the Gold Coast.  With the GC City council working beside the AWL they have significantly reduced this number to just over 1400 in 8 years.  1/4 of what it was.  That is excellent work indeed.

Here in Melbourne we have the RSPCA and Lost Dogs Home taking up the majority of council pound contracts, those few others left (around 3-4 out of 22) are working with rescue groups and making significant difference to the kill rates.  In 2009 the pound RWL works with, along with other shelters, found that they had not had to kill one rehomeable dog for the entire year.  Something to be seriously proud of.

One has to wonder why the RSPCA and LDH don't attempt to take this initiative up with each council and publically act upon it to reduce the number of animals ending up in their facilities.  A very open lobby to all Councils would be the sensible thing to do (such as what we are proposing with our desexing stance "Save A Life Petition") but of course other agendas will be controlling the play of the day no doubt.

Congratulations to Joy Verrinder, and all of AWL for the remarkable inroads they are making to a) reduce unwanted litters and backyard breeding and b) continue to work towards a no kill solution on the Gold Coast for companion animals.