Good to be an animal in Canberra

So pleased to have it confirmed that the RSPCA is as close to a no-kill shelter as you can get! I used to foster kittens for the RSPCA to help make sure they would be the beautifully socialised, climb into your arms type cats that would appeal to new owners. There is nothing as wonderful as kitten therapy. Especially when you know you are helping them as much as they are helping you.

This year we took on an unwanted pregnant cat we found out about privately. She had her 3 babies with us and once they were old enough they were desexed, microchipped and vaccinated before going to their new homes, Mumma cat included. No more kitten production line and 4 felines that never landed at the RSPCA.

One of those lovely babies has a mild but chronic eye problem and is mostly white and so carries a high sun cancer risk so we have decided to keep him here along with our other cats. Baby Vincent is asleep on my chest as I type!

Thank you RSPCA keep up the great work, and my donation will be coming through again as always.

Saw it the other day.

Very good to see the RSPCA doing such a humane job.

Now if we can just get scumbag pet owners to realise that a pet is a pet for life – not just until you get tired of it – then the world will be a better place.

Michael Linke, CEO of RSPCA ACT here.

To Deezagood: RSPCA and DAS work cooperatively together to find more homes for more animals. In 2009 DAS transferred 158 (79 of them dogs) animals to RSPCA and RSPCA transferred 231 to DAS. In the most part we transfer stray adult dogs to DAS as that is the only animal DAS caters for. This is done for a number of reasons: sometimes we are full, other reasons include an enforcement imperative as DAS can impose fines for regular breaches of ACT laws such as no micro chip, not desexed, not contained etc. RSPCA does not have that enforcement power.

Our homing rate is based on the formula whereby animals put to sleep are divided by all animals received. Some animals that go to DAS are included in this number, but not all as in some cases the animal goes directly to DAS from our holding kennels and does not enter our computer system. DAS’s homing rate is also in the 90% range. It seems some people are bothered by transfers as it is a common question I receive. I can assure you RSPCA and DAS aren’t.

To prhhcd: I’d be curious to learn more about what you thought was misleading?

last year on riot act, the area manager for RSPCA has alreay spoken about this.

( http://the-riotact.com/?p=12899 Comment-11 )

This report is a bit misleading but that aside, Michael Linke and his team do a great job in Canberra.

I think this is great too; but I do wonder how they calculate the many, many dogs that are transferred from the RSPCA to the Canberra Pound into their statistics. Are these dogs automatically counted as ‘rehomed’, or are they only considered ‘rehomed’ if they find a home from the pound? Are they still counted in the RSPCA’s kill statistics if they are put down at the pound? I am genuinely curious, so if anybody has an answer, I’d much appreciate it.

It wont last. too many animals, too many small blocks.

I think it’s great that they are saving the animals lives, I watched the show the other day, and thought of one of my daughters friends who used to work there, she had to leave as she was really upset about the animals being put to sleep, well done RSPC Canberra.