We want Oscar's Law to be implemented fully

I'm feeling wrung out, because I've just watched all the video clips on the Oscar's Law site. It's a site devoted to the fight to abolish the cruel trade of puppy farming.

Today I attended the Oscar's Law rally on the steps of the Victorian Parliament.

After listening to the speakers, I gathered that there has been a law passed in Victoria, but there have not been any prosecutions. (I'm not entirely sure I've got that right, but I did understand from all speakers that the government has not followed up on their promises with either money or resources.)

When I forced myself to watch the videos, I was disappointed to realise that we haven't ended the conditions in which dogs are starving to death, dying of preventable cancers, going insane, suffering endlessly.

I thought the suggestion in the following clip sounded helpful  - that puppies should have to come with certification that says the breeding facility has been inspected by the RSPCA and is suitable and humane.

WARNING: the video segment is very sad and disturbing.



Here are a few photos from the rally:

laboratory beagles set foot on grass for the first time

I've just wept all the way through a video clip of beagles taking their first ever step on fresh green grass after a lifetime in a research facility.

I saw it at Wizewomon's blog.

I won't post it here. Just follow the link if you want to see this heartrending but beautiful film.

I am further determined to make sure everything I buy is NOT TESTED ON ANIMALS.

the value of microchipping your dog

Today Penny and I drove to Blackburn to walk at Gardiner's Creek. As we travelled along busy Elgar Road, to my dismay I saw a puppy running alongside the traffic, trailing its lead. I couldn't leave it, obviously lost and frightened as it was, so I parked in a side street - which, fortuitously turned out to be a dead-end court - and left Penny in the car while I followed the dog.

It was panicky and wouldn't let me close, but I stayed between it and the busy road, and eventually herded it into the yard of a house at the top of the street. Calling out to let the homeowner know I was on the property, I followed it. A lady came out and we realised it was in a corner of the yard with no way out except past me. The poor creature allowed me to come close enough to grab the lead.

The lady told me she'd seen the dog around a couple of days previously. Thinking that it might be local, I called in at a nearby vet and told them I had a lost dog in my car. (Amazingly, Penny, who can be quite unfriendly when I arrive with lost dogs, sat quietly and ignored it.)

The lovely staff on the desk at the clinic took the dog in and set about checking for a microchip. Yes, there was one. But no, the owner hadn't registered an address. I had no option but to leave the puppy in their obviously kind hands and leave.

But as I walked with Penny I worried that the dog might end up in a shelter and be killed, as so many are.

So I headed back to check whether it was possible for the puppy to go to an organisation like 'Rescued With Love', where it doesn't have to suffer the trauma of a shelter.

And, what do you know! They had managed to contact the owner - and he was overjoyed. Because... the puppy had been lost since last Sunday, and they lived in Mordialloc, twenty-two kilometres away!

It seems they had come to Box Hill to look at the model railway, the puppy ran off, and they had searched in vain for days.

The poor hungry, filthy dog (its ribs were showing through) was already having a little meal, a warm bath and lots of love.

But I think the best moment would be when its own special human walked through the door.

DCH rescue calendar

We've received a beautiful calendar in the post. It has exquisite photos of rescued animals and the profits go to DogCatHorseRescue in New South Wales.
Of course I had a peep at each month's photo - I can never wait a whole year to see December's picture on calendars - and I particularly liked the photo for November, which includes Master Teal'c, whose human took the photos.

And those photos are all beautiful!

helping the bears in Asia

I would have loved to give Penny a Valentine's Day card, but I decided I had to draw the line and acknowledge that she's a dog and I'm a human, though our two species get along so delightfully.

However, when I read Teal'c's blog recently I realised I had a wonderful excuse for sending Penny a card. Teal'c suggested that we support the rescue of the poor mistreated bears in Asia. So I did. The idea was that the organisation would send me an e-card.

But I couldn't find it - until just now.

And here it is.

So, belatedly, happy Valentine's Day, lovely Penny.

Scooby is rescued from a cave

How much effort and money should be put into rescuing a lost pet?

Scooby, an eight-year-old cavalier King Charles spaniel, was lost in a cave in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, for five days. Deaf, and frightened, Scooby wouldn't be tempted out by a trail of snacks, so the rescuers bored through solid rock to reach him.

I agree with what RSPCA state chief executive Steve Coleman, who said:
"It's certainly a time-consuming rescue but, again, I don't think that the public would expect us just to walk away because it's all too hard."

If it were my dog I'd hope to receive every bit of help possible.

Here's an article in The Herald and another.

dogs and cats still being rescued from the Victorian bushfires

Tonight at training with Penny, at K9 Kompany, I heard a lovely story. (K9 Kompany is the dog training component of Coldstream Animal Shelter.

A dog the shelter people nicknamed Happy has been reunited with his family - from Kinglake, I think. The humans have been in intensive care in the hospital but are now out, and Happy is recovering from burnt paws. I think he will have to wear his little protective boots for six weeks, or maybe it was six months.

But... here comes the amazing part... the family's cat has just been brought in to the Coldstream shelter. Thank goodness for micro chipping, which has reunited one more member of this distressed family.

Pets are still being found, nearly two months after the main fires. Some, for instance, hid down wombat holes during the fires and are just now coming out of hiding.

It is a moving experience to read through the updates from the Shelter about the ways in which they are still helping animals recover from the fires. I particularly loved the excited post on the day they trapped Stardust the cat in Marysville.

Melburnians unite to save the Lort Smith animal shelter

The Age newspaper reported recently that the Lort Smith Animal Hospital will no longer be allowed to operate as a pound.

VICTORIA'S largest animal hospital has been banned from finding new homes for cats and dogs lost in the City of Melbourne, as local pounds brace for a sharp increase in the number of pets dumped over Christmas.

After helping to rehouse abandoned pets for the past 75 years, Lort Smith Animal Hospital has suddenly been ordered by Melbourne City Council to transfer all seized animals to a North Melbourne pound.

I think it might be that someone realised there was an agreement that councils would licence only one pound in each municipality and once that information was reported the Council had to act on it. I'm not quite sure whether this is the exact story behind it, but it does beg the question - couldn't whoever noticed the problem have kept it under his or her hat till after Christmas, when we humans celebrate by treating animals as disposable goods?

This is what Lort Smith says about the present situation.

I have enough faith in the humanity of our councillors to imagine that they are dismayed to have to act in such an inhumane way right before Christmas, the season of pet abandonment and cruelty. I'm hopeful that they are working hard to resolve the issue. But it never hurts to let them know we care.

I went to the site where the email addresses of the Councillors are listed and wrote to them all.

If you would be able to write a letter to the Melbourne City Councillors, it would be great. If you want some ideas, there are letters that others have written, here and here.

I said:

Dear

I have read that the Lort Smith Animal Hospital has been forced to cut back its shelter operations due to a Melbourne City council decision, as reported in The Age newspaper.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/council-pounces-stripping-lort-smith-of-its-pound-status-20081213-6xy5.html

For some years I have been a supporter of the work done by the Lort Smith Animal Hospital and I would like to register my disappointment with the Council’s action.

I realise that the decision may have come about through a discovery that the Hospital was inadvertently not complying with regulations, but I would hope that Melbourne City Council can work with the Hospital to urgently put some arrangements in place to care for lost animals at this critical time of the year.

Lort Smith provides an essential service for us all, in making Melbourne a place where animals are treated humanely, so that we can take pride in our city. If the Lost Dogs’ Home has to take on the numbers of animals who would otherwise have been sheltered at Lort Smith, I fear there will be an even greater number of innocent animals euthanased.

If Lort Smith has operated as a shelter under successive Councils for 75 years, without anyone acting on this discrepancy, it must appear that this newly elected Council is overly bureaucratic and inhumane – not a good image.

I urge you to work with the Hospital to resolve the issue in an imaginative and humane way, so that Melburnians can have faith that you are the leaders we want you to be.

campaign to rehome dogs Home 4 the Holidays

Penny's blog received a comment a few days ago, asking me to promote a pet rehoming project called Home 4 the Holidays, which aims to place at least 1 million pets in loving and happy homes over the holiday season (Oct. 1, 2008 through Jan. 5, 2009).

I hesitated for a while because I have a policy of not engaging in any marketing (except for the ads that appear if you click on my world map - I love the free map so much I couldn't resist it). The Home 4 the Holidays Program is backed by the petfood company Iams.

However, it is such a good cause that I think it deserves promotion.

These Australian shelters are taking part:
1. Greyhound Fan Club, Sydney NSW
2. NSW Animal Rescue Inc, Toongabbie
3. PetRescue, East Vic Park
4. PetsHaven, Woodend
5. RSPCA, Fairfield Gardens
6. Save Our Strays, Sydney NSW

1. Greyhound Fan Club, Sydney, is sponsored by Nutrience, which I take to be a subsidiary of Iams, and, strangely, they have an address that ends with .ru - a RUSSIAN web address. They have an adoption page with stories of dogs now in loving homes.

2. I rang NSW Animal Rescue, because at that stage I hadn't found their great site, with its sad and happy photos and stories of the work they do. Steve Austin is their sponsor. They are a voluntary organisation and have taken part in the Home 4 the Holidays program for the past few years. I spoke to one of their volunteers, who was most helpful.

3. PetRescue, East Victoria Park is a listing on a national register of rescue organisations - the actual name is 'shel', and at that site is listed as having rehomed ONE animal in the last year. I couldn't find out any more about them via the Web.

4. Pets Haven in Woodend in Victoria has its own site and lots of 'happy ending' stories of rehomed animals. They have a policy of keeping animals as long as possible, rather than euthanasing after a set time.

5. I guess the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) needs no explanation. Probably our best-known animal welfare agency.

6. Save Our Strays, Sydney NSW - I couldn't find an individual site for this organisation but they have lots of successful rehomings listed on PetRescue.

Here's the original comment that I received:

My name is Victoria, and I'm with Rocket XL, a marketing agency working out of Los Angeles. I wanted to invite you to join in a great project we're working on to help homeless dogs, cats & animals everywhere. We're working on a project for one of the world's most successful pet adoption drives, Home 4 the Holidays, which has set a goal to place at least 1 million pets in loving and happy homes over this holiday season (Oct. 1, 2008 through Jan. 5, 2009). In fact, Home 4 the Holidays has 6 shelters participating in Australia alone this year!

With some help from animal-supporting bloggers like yourselves sharing the word about the program, and this year's Home 4 the Holidays celebrity spokesperson, Felicity Huffman and her beloved adopted dog Tucker, we know we can reach this goal! Last year alone, this pet adoption program helped nearly 500,000 families experience the joy of pet adoption. In fact, since it began in 1999, Iams Home for the Holidays has helped place more than 2 million pets into happy homes.