Jingle Bells

So essentially it was OK to take the money from the many kind hearted supporters for use by Petrescue while Shel was at the helm of it all.... and now she isnt she says it isnt right???

Seems to me she loaded the gun that shot the bullet!

I wonder... is it possible that she should self fund the project like we do our rescues? and have done since she started petrescue!

Shel put her hand in her pocket and use her own money???? Excuse me while I roll on the floor convulsing with laughter over that one!!!

Shel has one set of rules for herself and another for everyone else.

I received a call last weekend from someone who was about to euthanase their dog, unless I agreed to take it due to current circumstances.

The dog in question had been kept as an outside dog all it's life after being "rescued from a pet shop".

Of course I understand that people have changes in circumstances and I do take surrendered dogs and let the old owner know how they are and when I rehome them etc.

This little dog was left in a vet cage for a few days until I could arrange collection. The owner then texted me daily wanting updates. On this occasion, I'm not happy to do it - the owner was a vet nurse so imagine my surprise/horror to find the dog (an elderly terrier cross) was:

1. not desexed (had puppies at some point)

2. had mammary tumours

3. had bad teeth with roots exposed

4. had long term severe flea infestation and consequently very smelly skin (even after 2 baths as she was filthy dirty)

5. overgrown nails

6. very underweight, ie you can feel all her bones

She'd never been to a vet - go figure. Owner didn't know the age of their own dog except that she was "over 10".

I've taken her on and will find her a really nice home for the rest of her days, she's safe now.

The owner doesn't think they did anything wrong, when I challenged them they said "they are not cruel to animals".

Total neglect constitutes cruelty in my opinion and how you could do it to such a dear little dog I have no idea.

Thank you for being kind.

The stupid vet nurse is a cruel person and a very ignorant one as well.

Very good and funny --------- but please, ditch the American accent.

I did not like the accent either

BSL is rubbish. Glad the RSPCA wrote the letter. I wish it would stop. Too many good dogs being killed for no reason.

The fact that my dog (Sheeba) helps me with my depression and anxiety.

A knee jerk reaction may be to smack a dog or shove it to one side - that is bad enough, but to break that many ribs?????WTF???? I don't give a shit who he is, he should be in jail and have his medical license revoked.

I am sure no-one is really pleased about having to clean up disgusting poo messes, but they happen. The dog didn't do it on purpose. If my dogs toilet inside I get annoyed at myself that I dodn't take enough notice of what they were trying to tell me. You certainly don't scream or yell at them and you certainly don't do whatever he did that caused that much damage. I am very surprised the little dog survived. I would have been extremely wary about having him around young children like that with that sort of knee jerk reaction considering what kids can produce!

Yes and I bet this was not the first time either.

Horrible Horrible. I would never let him treat me.

My link

Does anyone in rescue know anything about these peeps?

14 Managers! Seriously?

What exactly do they do?

Pound Rounds are in more trouble, so it seems.

Looks like they are asking for money for vet bills for dog poisoning when people have phoned police and found out there is no record of dogs being baited. So how can a group ask for money for vet bills when there is no vets to pay?

People asking to pay direct to the vet get banned. Ex pound rounders have rung all the vets who deal with pound rounds but it seems no record of any so called baiting.

Looks like 2 or 3 other groups also popped up who are very worried about Pound Rounds.

I made the mistake of donating to pound rounds but they did not answer my questions and instead just banned me from asking more.

It is all very sad and they are doing damage to ethical rescue and rescue's credibility.

I call BS and a big scam!

Plenty of links on Facebook

Pound Rounds beware

Pound Rounds Exposed

A very dodgy email address also suggested by Pound Rounds to use (this is [email protected] )

** IMPORTANT MESSAGE **

As some of you may be aware volunteers of the Pound Rounds have been forced to take legal action and seek police help for the recent alleged threats, trespass and theft, resulting in serious, life threatening injury to our kennel dogs.

We are inviting anyone with any information to contact the police with information relating to anyone who may have injured the dogs in our care and who may provide information related to the planning of the break in at our kennels.

Being aware of illegal activity or being involved in the planning of illegal activity and not reporting it to the police is a crime and carries criminal and civil legal liabilities.

Pound Rounds members are also seeking legal action against some members of this group and would ask anyone who has received unsolicited communication that may have sought to;

a) Denigrate Pound Rounds or its members.

b) Provide links to hate pages or invitations to join hate groups.

c) Accuse Pound Rounds or any it’s members of ‘illegal’, ‘unethical’ or ‘irresponsible’ or erroneous activity.

d) Defamed or slanders Pound Rounds or it's members.

Please forward all information to [email protected] or contact your nearest police station if you believe you have inadvertently been involved in illegal activity. If you do not have original information; statutory declarations or emails with your version of events will still help in the initial term. All information is confidential and will be handled only by our legal team and/or the police.

It's not just "convention via dogz". I have been a member here for many years and at the same time ran a program for five years. The DOL culture has been influenced by best practices in rescue. We didn't invent our conventions here. Most of us realise that assessment is the one most important part of making sure the wider community isn't put put in danger unnecessarily. Even the big shelters that people 'love to hate' use assessment.

Im not suggesting the convention is only here or that it was invented here however, in the main most people who stay here hold the same beliefs and ethics - its reasonable to say its a convention that most dogz rescue forum users agree with. It is not however, what is necessarily practiced by other rescue people and its not something that has to be practiced in order to be within the law in the state of NSW.

No it's not law, it's best practice to assess dogs.

And it's illegal to make false claims.

What are false or misleading representations?

It is unlawful to make false claims or misleading descriptions:

• about the supply or possible supply of consumer goods or services
• when promoting the supply or use of goods or services.

For instance, your business must not make false or misleading representations

• the standard, quality, value or grade of goods or services

And it's illegal to engage in misleading or deceptive conduct as well,

What is misleading or deceptive conduct?

'Conduct' includes actions and statements, such as:

• advertisements
• promotions
• quotations
• statements
• any representation made by a person.

Business conduct is likely to break the law if it creates a misleading overall impression among the intended audience about the price, value or quality of consumer goods or services.

Whether you intended to mislead or deceive is irrelevant; what matters is how your statements and actions - your 'business conduct' – could affect the thoughts and beliefs of a consumer.

I think it could be seen as deceptive to be promoting dogs like the dog aggressive, fence jumping red-nosed amstaff as being suitable for people to take home. I think the dog is faulty goods. It's not illegal not to assess, but it is illegal to make claims that you are not qualified to make that could result in a person being misled.

That is a point worth taking further I think, if the claims on Facebook are true, a few people could have legal actions against Pound Rounds.

Here's my reply:

As a rescuer I watch the pounds all the time. I am an ethical rescuer and do not agree that DA dogs should be rescued/rehomed, ESPECIALLY when they jump fences. This is a huge risk to the community at large and particularly the case in strong powerful dogs. If the pounds were operating with due diligence, they would not be releasing these animals at all. I have major concerns about ANY rescue group that takes these types of dogs on – do they do homechecks? Do they check the abilities/habits of the new owners (ie do they take the dog to a dog park, let it off the lead and so on)? Are they 100% sure that these dogs will NEVER be in a situation where they can attack another animal or a person who tries to defend their pet from attack? Only then could it be remotely acceptable and is almost beyond the realms of possibility to cover every scenario.

Please move my email address from your mailing list – I wish to have no communication or association whatsoever with you personally or Pound Rounds.

I have not read all these posts but you should know there is a Facebook page, Pound Rounds Beware with lots of horror stories. I am not sure if you have seen it, Many people PM the admin of the page as they don't want to be harassed by MN and her "followers", especially one religious nutcase who uses guilt tripping to get people to give dogs a home.

I'd like to see a little more info on their committee members listed on their pages - what they bring to the table with regards to achieving the goals they are stating are their objective, etc...

The only publically listed email address for the group can be found on their Facebook page, and when you google that email address, she appears to be a palm reader? Then again the email address for the registrant of the site is "rat1bag @ gmail.com", which doesn't exactly inspire confidence...

T.

Hmmmmm True.......

I am in quite a few groups where Annie posts and I have not seen her blaming breeders "for everything" as you say Linda.

I see most of her posts relating to up to date news and media stories. In fact I don't think I have ever seen her blame purebred breeders. I have seen her comment on back yard breeders though.

It is sad when someone trying who is trying to do the right thing gets untrue things said about the things they post on Facebook.

I know for a fact she has some purebred breeders among her friends and part of her facebook group.

In today's Herald

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/424395/letters-some-questions-about-animals/?cs=315

As principal solicitor for law firm Lawyers for Companion Animals, I have concerns about the composition of the companion animals taskforce.

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The taskforce has denied repeated requests to have representation on it by community rescue groups.

In the United States, on the Dallas task force, more than 50per cent of the people on it are, or have previously been, part of community rescue groups.

Most of the members on the state government’s taskforce have not implemented meaningful solutions to reduce the kill rate of our companion animals. In this effort grassroots rescue organisations are leading the way.

What is of even more concern is that the taskforce failed to support Clover Moore’s inquiry into companion animals, which would have allowed an open inquiry into the issues causing high companion-animal euthanasia.

Why is the chairman of the taskforce repeatedly defending the actions of the NSW RSPCA, which uses a temperament test that results in the death thousands of dogs a year because of ‘‘behavioural issues’’?

Why is the RSPCA repeatedly rejecting offers from rescue groups to assist them?

Why did the RSPCA NSW not proactively bring the issue of high kill rate of companion animals to the public’s attention, instead of quietly killing companion animals, while at the same time accepting donations and bequests to protect and care for them?

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/413532/letter-the-kill-rate-must-drop/?cs=315

IT is clear there is community concern, as expressed in recent letters and articles in the Herald, about the killing of animals (let’s not call it “euthanasia”, which is mercy killing) in pounds and shelters in our region.

That many of these animals are in RSPCA facilities and have been subject to temperament testing alarms many people.

Of course dangerous animals should not be re-homed. That goes without saying.

But with overwhelming numbers entering the shelters, how much staff time and expertise can be devoted to each animal?

In the view of Hunter Animal Watch, the nub of the problem is over-supply of animals.

So why doesn’t the RSPCA spearhead desexing across the state? And why do Lake Macquarie, Newcastle, Cessnock and Maitland councils hand over ratepayers’ money to contract the RSPCA to deal with this over-supply?

Why don’t these councils insist that public education and cheap desexing should be part of the RSPCA contract?

We look forward to the recommendations of the Companion Animal Taskforce, chaired by the member for Charlestown, Andrew Cornwell, because, as an animal welfare group that has given financial help to about 25,000 pensioners in the Lower Hunter to desex their pets, we want to be assured that the kill rate is going to come right down and that we are not wasting our time raising money with little hope of an acceptable outcome for animals.

Olga Parkes, Hunter Animal Watch

And I found this one as well

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/402233/point-score-how-to-test-pet-temper/?cs=311

A TEMPERAMENT test for dogs was provided to the Newcastle Herald yesterday.

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It consists of 25 assessments with each having between four and 11 response levels.

Each level of the test comes with a score of between 0 and 20 points, or a "fail".

In any assessment if the dog barks, jumps, becomes excited or appears scared it can be given points.

The scorecard is marked out of 500, with dogs scoring more than 100 labelled as unsuitable for adoption.

A dog that barks when exposed to a cat will be marked 10 points and if it chases the cat it will score 20.

If a dog playing with provided toys holds on to the object and does not let go it will receive 20 points.

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When the assessor makes a sudden noise and the dog becomes startled it can score 10 points.

NSW RSPCA chief executive Steve Coleman said he wanted to dispel rumours that dogs scoring more than 100 were automatically euthanised.

"There's a mythical number of 100 going around," he said.

"There are examples where a dog scores over 100 but still passes."

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/416781/opinion-poor-rescue-groups-shame-rich-rspca/

EVERY year thousands of companion animal rescue volunteers save thousands of dogs and cats from pounds and shelters across the state.

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These community-based rescue groups don't have any of the resources or financial backing that the RSPCA enjoys, yet when they can co-ordinate with a council-run pound the results are magnificent.

In our region alone, Wyong Council Animal Care Facility has a kill ratio of 12 per cent, while Muswellbrook's facility has one of 4 per cent for dogs.

Meanwhile the RSPCA NSW, with an overall kill rate of over 50 per cent, continues to make excuses for ignoring the community's expectations.

The rescue groups re-home thousands of cats and dogs every year, akin to the numbers of the RSPCA. These groups are major players in the companion animal field and have a significant part to play.

So it was extremely disappointing that not one rescue group or representative was accepted on the government's companion animal taskforce.

This taskforce was formed, in part, to try to reduce the number of animals euthanised in this state every year. The organisation that destroys more animals than any other single institution is the RSPCA. Yet it was on this taskforce, whereas rescue groups, the major player in the saving and re-homing of animals, were not.

Vet and member of state parliament, Andrew Cornwell, the taskforce chairman, was lobbied by a large number of the rescue groups, to no effect.

Lobbying the responsible government ministers was likewise fruitless.

In the circumstance I am not surprised by the comments of Mr Cornwell in supporting the RSPCA, even though some feel it has outdated practices, including the objectionable behavioural test, while rescue groups expert in modern practices were marginalised.

With an overall kill rate exceeding 50 per cent, it is disconcerting to know that the RSPCA made more than $10 million profit last year, received a $7.5 million government grant, and holds more than $30 million in shares and other investments.

Council-run pounds, which have small budgets, and rescue groups that are constantly broke can achieve far greater results.

They deal with exactly the same type of animals under the same conditions as the RSPCA.

Yet the contrasting results couldn't be more alarming.

We believe the RSPCA NSW must review and reform its practices and policies voluntarily, especially considering it can well afford it - before calls for governmental intervention become commonplace.

This becomes even more evident when we compare the NSW RSPCA branch with its ACT counterpart.

The RSPCA ACT has reported a kill ratio of a mere 6.5 per cent.

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Clearly something is wrong in NSW.

None of our criticism is aimed at RSPCA volunteers and workers - our criticisms are aimed at the leadership by RSPCA senior management and board, who seem to think everything is fine.

We argue that it is not.

David Atwell is the vice-president of the Society of Companion Animal Rescuers.

I have seen more dogs in shelters and pounds than most people. That test is outrageous.

I agree. It is good that this temp test is finally out there in the open though.