Newsletter Contents January 2001
Dear friend
Everyone at ARRG sincerely wish you a Happy New Year. We thank you for the caring words written to us and generous donations sent to help the abused and unwanted animals during another Xmas.
ARRG has battled another year and Xmas period and again our work involved the tragic and success stories. It is apparent that the demands on ARRG are growing alarmingly. The number of surrendered pets is shocking. Many callers just want to 'drop off' their unwanted pets for pathetic reasons. We are witnessing a serious disposable pet pattern, which now appears to becoming the norm.
ARRG continues to lobby for pet education for the public and school education. The government and the large organisations must address this need. They have the funding to do this. Most community problems recieve funding for campaigns, why won't they fund this problem. The public need to realise they are failing as pet owners. Blaming the animal is not on. Most of their disposable pets will not find homes.
Most large shelters are overcrowded with unwanted animals resulting with up to 70% of animals killed. Most pounds are constantly full with abandoned animals. Tragically most are unclaimed and will be killed. Many small groups such as ARRG are crying out for help because they are self funded and often have no shelter. ARRG must establish a shelter on the Far North Coast or its rescue operation will collapse.
We rescue over a 1000 animals a year, if we close these dogs will go to pounds and cats and kittens would die as no-one else will take them. Our volunteer group takes up to 30 calls a day regarding animals needing help. Why won't the authorities fund our work or provide land. We provide a brilliant welfare service helping people desex their pets and provide food for pets if needed. Who else would do this?
Write to a local member in this region and ask them to assist ARRG to get funding and land to continue this work for the community and animals before it is too late.
So many people to thank.
'Silverchair' donated $950.00 from an auction of a signed book. Daniel's group is very dedicated to Animal Welfare.
Beatrice Wells in the USA sent $US100 to support our work.
IFAW $3000 grant sent annually.
Noel & Kate Doyle, Lesley & Genevera, Eltham Gallery, Jean Reid, Mrs Marks, Dr Reeves, Barbara Joblin, Mr & Mrs Shewell, Mike & Kath Hall, Robyn Marshall-Jung, Lorraine Brown, Audrey Broadbent, Laine Jones, E. King, Jean Brigstock, Deanna Grove, Liz Moll, Peta Heeson, R & I Watt, Dr B. Tonkin, The staff at Shelley Beach Cafe, Christine & Walter Cheatle, S & L Russell, Animal Allies Gold Coast, Laurene & John Franklin, Ray Mezieres, Thomas Molnar, Lydie Boyd, S. Lublow, Maria Nelson, Mary & Jean Wilson, Trish Rowney, Raymond Joylr NT, David Mathews Lennox who's donated T-shirts for ARRG. Thanks for this project. Anonymous donations. Forgive any oversight.
ARRG recieves many calls regarding neglect, cruelty and abandonment of animals. The RSPCA fails to have a constant presence here and we get many calls from distressed people who have reported cruelty cases and continue to witness ongoing abuse. The RSPCA inspector has been absent on holiday for much of the Xmas & New Year period, a time that is notoriously bad for animals. Many people have attempted to contact the RSPCA at Coffs Habour as requested in his absence and have recieved little response.
How can we help animals or deter people from ill-treating pets when the RSPCA do not provide sufficient animal law enforcement on the Far North Coast region. This situation has been occurring for many years and ARRG has written many letters highlighting various cases to the RSPCA Head Office in Sydney. They will not even reply to us or the public. It seems you need to be writing a cheque for a donation to get a reply from the RSPCA. ARRG does not have the powers to help, we have to refer these calls to the RSPCA or Police. Often both are unavailable which means we're not sure if the animal is helped. We document all these calls and monitor the outcome and it appears many of these animals do not get freed from their cruel situations.
The RSPCA have vast amounts of money why won't they spend it on animals. We need more inspectors for this region. We need a shelter, we need money to fund low cost desexing. These measures would help save animals from prolonged suffering and prevent unwanted animals from being born to a life of misery and neglect. Most will die either illegally or legally in pounds and shelters.
Don't support groups who do not directly fund real solutions that will stop the killing or Groups that do not help animals in this region. The traditional shelter attitude of killing the surplus must stop. They must spend the money given to them for the animals on solutions.
So many incredible stories, it's hard to know where to start. Some you would not wan't to know. Can I thank all the phone volunteers who take the brunt of the stress. They do their utmost to resolve some dreadful calls, so that we can save the animals. It's hard to imagine some of the things people say to us on the phone.
We also recieve calls from many agencies such as the Women's refuge, Women Up North, Lismore Base Hospital. They help people but do not cater for their clients pets. At this point we feel these agencies need to have some scheme in place to assist the pets, rather than to rely on ARRG to be able to respond immediately and cover all costs for their clients pets.
A social worker for the Kidney unit at the Lismore Base Hospital called ARRG to report that a patient had a mum dog and pups left at her home with no-one to care for them. This lady had called RSPCA and was told they couldn't help! We sent a volunteer to the home to find a female staffi suffering from severe mange and two pups. We took them all into care. The owner due to her illness had neglected the dog. 'Kiara' the staffi mum needed intensive care and we took the pups into care and both found homes. 'Kiara' has responded to her treatment and all her hair lose has grown back. Our carer has decided to keep 'Kiara' a very special home, a lucky girl.
Women's refuge rang to say they had taken a lady into care but her dogs were left in her car, could we take them. Stephanie our carer agreed to take the 2 small daschunds into care. We cared for them for several weeks until she was able to take them back. We do this for no charge in an attempt to keep pets with their owners.
We believe these agencies should provide some support for pets for their clients. Funds should be make available to also help the pets when people are taken into their care. Often these people would be distressed about the welfare of their pets yet no support is provided. ARRG receives no funding yet is seen as an extension of welfare, vet clinics and councils. We need support for this work.
A distressed man called saying he couldn't cope, his wife had left, taken his kids, left a dog and 6 pups could we help. The pups we only 5 weeks old, so we wouldn't take them. We gave him food and told him to give them a week or more. When he handed them in at 7 weeks they were fat and happy. We placed all pups and we desexed the female dog which he was keeping.
Leanne rang to say she had found a dumped pregnant kelpie who had 6 pups, could we help find homes. When she heard how difficult it was to find homes for adults she offered to keep mum. We took the pups and most have found homes through ARRG. Mum is a lucky dog she didn't end up in the pound and she is now desexed.
Over the last few months we have taken over 30 dogs from pounds. Most have come from Casino pound, who we reported for their neglect of dogs in the pound. It appears conditions have improved in this pound, lets hope this continues.
'Lucky' is a foxie x saved from Ballina pound. He was so thin & had a kidney infection. Bev Casidy our carer had given him much TLC he is approx. 9yrs and needs a loving home for life.
Cats & kittens often don't get the same caring reaction from the public. Again we are in cat breeding season and the number of calls about pregnant cats and cats with kittens abandoned on properties or in town are shocking. Why do people treat kittens and cats as throwaway items. The councils do not respond to these calls. There is no RSPCA and ARRG on its own attempts to help as many as possible. The number of cats and kittens being killed in shelters is staggering. The future for cats is very dismal. Because of the companion animals Act which requires cats to be registered & the constant media false press about the killer cat, leaves many cat owners feeling intimidated. Many may now choose not to own a cat. This means there are less homes available for cats, but nothing is done to stop the breeding of unwanted litters. This means more will die either illegally such as drowning or killed in shelters. The government & wealthy groups must fund desex programs to stop the breeding
Sincere thanks to everone who helps. I wish we could list everyone, but space would not permit, many thanks to our carers, the backbone of the group, the phone volunteers, drivers, Op shop volunteers, the caring people who regularly put food for animals in our donation bins.
From all the animals whose lives you help save. Thank You all.
This is most important:
The membership fees go directly to cover our vet and food bills. All renewals are due in February 2001. Please pay promptly. Newsletters occur quarterly.
Next general meeting February 11th 12.30pm at 5 Converys Lane Wollongbar. All volunteers, carers, members urged to attend, guests welcome. Many urgent issues.
New ph no. 66814244