RSPCA Reports 12 Month Wait to Surrender Animals. ABC News 13/12/24

[Deeds]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-13/rspca-report-12-month-wait-to-surrender-animals/104706694

[Little Gifts]

I'm clearly not a fan of the RSPCA - that story made me see red. With their bottom line profits and legislative powers they are the only 'rescue' organisation that makes rules that work for them whilst leaving many 'all creatures great and small' at risk. And they are fine with it. Smaller independent rescues are bending over backwards to try and accommodate all the animals in need and they do it without the money (including ones sent their way by the RSPCA). They also hit capacity but wouldn't dare say we are closed to surrenders for 12 months! What audacity! They just work harder and stretch themselves thinner and keep everything crossed it works out.

 

RSPCA are so out of touch with and unresponsive to reality. I can't wait for the day they are gone and their money goes to where the work is really being done.

[tdierikx]

Considering that I was at the Yagoona facility recently to pick up 2 dogs from them to come into care at the privately run rescue I foster for... and had to wait while a fellow surrendered his 4 month old oodle pup... I'm calling bullsh!t here.

 

Obviously the 12 month waitlist is reserved for animals that may not be easily rehomable if a person can walk in and surrender an oodle puppy on the spot with little problem, yes?

 

The rescue I'm with has taken in easily 50 or so animals from RSPCA NSW in the past 6 months alone... and we have also taken in animals via AWL NSW - in fact, I'm likely getting a wee foxie and her 2 neonate pups from AWL in the next couple of days.

 

Quite frankly, for any animal shelter to enact waitlists for animals that are urgently in need of finding alternate accommodations is simply appalling. It's rare that someone decides on the spur of the moment to surrender their pet, and usually it's in some sort of crisis situation such as having to move to somewhere that won't allow pets or similar. To then be told "come back in 12 months" is just ridiculous.

 

So what are people reduced to doing when turned away from the only facilities they know of to find homes for their pets? They generally will have to abandon those pets... which then forces the also strained pound system to have to try to house/rehome them somehow. And take note here that pound facilities are in many cases rudimentary temporary housing for lost animals... they aren't designed for long term holding, like the facilities at RSPCA with their flash government funded kennels, vet clinic, and well staffed rehoming centres.

 

The NSW pound system also got irretrievably broken with the enactment of the "Rehoming Bill" introduced by the Animal Justice Party in 2021 and passed into law in 2022. That Bill basically means that any physically healthy (no mention of mentally healthy mind you) animal in any NSW pound MUST be offered to at least 2 privately run rescue groups before any thought of euthanasia is considered. On paper that looks great, but in reality it's NOT working well at all, as those small rescues are now being overrun with pleas from pounds to take on any and all animals from those pounds... then add to that strain RSPCA offloading literally hundreds of animals every month to those same small rescues, and you start to see the big picture here. Ostensibly, our state government has outsourced (with NO funding - big win for government there) the entire responsibility for lost or abandoned animals in this state.

 

Now, I'm not averse to the rescue industry being funded by government for all the hard work that's been foisted upon them, but with that funding MUST come regulation, so that animals don't just fall through the cracks and end up in worse welfare situations than they came from. Currently only rescues that register with the Office of Local Government (OLG) for certain exemptions to registration rules are made to do any reporting about the animals they take into care. Similarly only those who register as charities need to report certain statistics to the ACNC. But what of those rescues who are not registered with either authority, and thus have NO oversight of their activities? I guarantee you that not all rescues are necessarily doing the right thing by the animals in their care, and that needs to be addressed.

 

T.

[persephone]

What a mess  Rehoming in itself must be difficult at the moment, with money so tight for so many people - seems things will get worse before they get better

[Little Gifts]

3 hours ago, persephone said:

What a mess  Rehoming in itself must be difficult at the moment, with money so tight for so many people - seems things will get worse before they get better

The need is so bad at the moment that my breed specific rescue group is taking on other breeds at the moment. They get dogs out of pounds all up and down the east coast and sometimes it is hard to say no when transport for a pei is already arranged and there is a pregnant small white fluffy also there. At first it bugged me but now I realise it is still a life saved and they care.