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Walking the Animal Control Tightrope: Where do we draw the line between Animal Control and Welfare?
Laura Maloney
Gray areas abound in the world of Animal Control and Welfare. In New Orleans, Louisiana when I was the Chief Executive Officer for the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (LA/SPCA), we had our feet firmly planted in both camps. While the 119-year-old LA/SPCA is the state’s largest animal welfare organisation, it has had full animal control responsibility in New Orleans for as long as it has been mandated. In preparing this paper, it has been interesting to reflect on the interface of the two activities – Animal Control and Animal Welfare.
Issues such as dangerous dogs or other code violations have traditionally been the purview of animal control because the animals in this situation are causing a safety threat or nuisance thereby reducing a neighbourhood’s overall well-being. Whereas activities such as low-cost veterinary services and programs that strengthen the human/animal bond commonly fall to non-profit animal welfare groups.
In the U.S., the lines between animal control and animal welfare are however becoming increasingly blurred. While animal control agencies continue to seek more efficient and effective means of fulfilling their mission to protect the public from animal nuisance and danger, the public for their part is tending to expect Animal Control Officers to respond to other kinds of animal problems faced within a neighbourhood including those associated with animal care and cruelty.
This paper discusses the distinctions between these two animal management roles (animal control and animal welfare) with a view to obtaining a clearer perspective of both. It also looks at crossover examples between them using real-life scenarios such as dog fighting cases and disaster response. Finally it suggests how and where we might strike the balance in terms of cost/benefit ratio to help plan for the changes that surely lie ahead.
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Saving Pets = Saving People: Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina
Laura Maloney
Our primary (planned) animal recovery centre had been destroyed in the hurricane and we were using an emergency alternative animal recovery location. About 2,000 animals were being managed each night. We could not humanely house anymore, but just outside the entrance, carloads and caravans of animal rescuers were waiting at the gates with hundreds and hundreds more animals that had been rescued from New Orleans. There were many eager rescuers, but fewer willing to stay behind and care for those being sheltered. There was a mixture of chaos, frustration, and battling philosophies among the varying groups and individual rescuers.
Our animal control officers and animal care attendants were operating on little or no sleep. A large percentage of our staff had themselves lost everything they owned, yet they pushed on rescuing animals. The team has endured personal losses and witnessed horrific images that will last with them forever. They had seen emaciated animals too weak to stand, half eaten carcasses and animals drowned in high waters with their bodies still tied the fences where they had been left. They encountered once friendly dogs gone feral from wandering the streets and suffering from extreme thirst and starvation. All this in neighbourhood scenarios of their home totally destroyed with some shifted right off their foundations and lying in the middle of the street.
Chaos quickly ensued in the early days of the Katrina animal control crisis as the rescue lists grew by the thousands. The inability to communicate by land lines and the inability to install computer systems in those early days made it challenging to organize one central list that everyone could work from. The pleas to rescue trapped animals and move mountains to reunite owners with pets were overwhelming. The calls for help from people looking for their animals were often heartbreaking and unforgettable.
This presentation, offered by the person responsible for New Orleans animal control and disaster response during Katrina, is focussed on what worked and what didn’t during those difficult months. It offers first-hand accounts and lessons learned for anyone in the job of animal control, disaster planning and response.
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Dogs 101 – Targeting innate Canine behavioural needs in seeking better owner outcomes
Craig Murray - Specialist Dog Trainer
To be successful with dog ownership, we humans need to be mindful first of all that dogs are not people, they are dogs. While this might seem to be a self evident observation, when the behaviour of dogs becomes problematic, it is often because they have not been raised and shaped in a way that is environmentally, behaviourally and psychologically correct for their canine physical and mental wellbeing.
In recent times there has been a shift in some circles to discredit the notion that dogs raised without discipline are automatically going to be happier animals that cope better with the role they are given as companion animals. This full session presentation addresses this theme in the context of the five crucial behaviour shaping elements of dog selection, socialisation, leadership, management and control.
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Emergency and Disaster Management - The Australian arrangements
Deb Kelly, Manager, Animal Welfare Unit, DEH South Australia
Disasters and emergencies come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. The only thing they have in common is that they cannot be controlled. But, if there are systems in place and people know their roles and responsibilities they can be managed. Napoleon Bonaparte once said that he planned every battle and then decided what to do when he arrived. Disaster management is much the same. Planning cannot stop the inevitable but it can change the outcome for literally thousands of families.
Australia has a well developed system of disaster arrangements and local government plays an important role when the flag goes up. To ensure that council personnel can meet the extreme demands of an emergency or a disaster, it is important that officers have a basic knowledge of how the system works and what their roles might be. Wherever there are people there are pets and it almost impossible to manage people if the pets are not considered. People have refused to evacuate and leave their pets and some died trying to save them, to many people the animals are central to their family and to some, to their very identity. It has also been shown that communities re-establish much quicker after the disaster if the pets are there with them. Effective management of the situation will ensure that people and animals are safe and life can get back to normal once the crisis has passed.
The purpose of this paper is provide an overview of the emergency management structures and systems that are in place in Australia and how you, as a council officer fit into them
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Disaster Planning – An Institute perspective for Local Government
Elke Tapley – Coordinator Local Laws and Traffic, Knox City Council
Local Government is becoming adept at preparedness and prevention for natural disaster situations by creating Fire Prevention Plans, Emergency Management Plans, Emergency Recovery Plans and Risk Management Matrices. But have we adequately taken animals and animal control into account within these documents? Have those responsible for the development of these documents adequately included Animal Management Officers as legitimate stakeholders?
The consequences of not being prepared have been seen time and again even though disaster types around us vary and affect us in different ways. Population evacuations in the face of disaster threats will always involve animals. People will often refuse to leave their pets behind - and that adds a whole extra dimension to disaster planning.
This AIAM Position Statement about preparing for emergency situations will assist council animal management systems in linking with the emergency planning relevant to their location. This paper is intended to assist with an orderly review of statutory obligations and staffing requirements. It also provides a checklist for staff resources, agreements for agencies available to assist, and understanding of the chain of command throughout an emergency.
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Paving the Path for Tomorrow’s Animal Management in Australia: Investigating roles, goals, definitions and directions as we move forward
Laura Maloney, Dick Murray, Pete Chandler
In Australia, historically, local authorities (operating under local government legislation) have provided urban animal control services intended to prevent pet animals from being a public nuisance or danger. In recent decades, these services (at least in Australia) have come to be more commonly called urban animal management. The regulatory processes for prevention of cruelty have, on the other hand, operated independently of Local government with prevention of cruelty coming under separate state based animal welfare legislation.
This paper puts forward the proposition that Australian animal control and prevention of cruelty services could in future merge to some degree under the shared umbrella of a new kind of more comprehensive community animal management service.
The current Australian process lends itself to a number of issues that might however preclude this happening, even if it does prove to be a sound proposition in theory. These obstacles could include elements such as conflicts over traditional roles and authorities; legislative inconsistency and inertia; insufficient resource access; frustrations over less than ideal training methods and limited career structure for people working within the industry and so on.
In the US, Canada and the UK many communities have bridged this gap by working control and care (prevention of cruelty) as a combined type of regulatory service. The mandate of Many U.S. animal control agencies includes basic cruelty code enforcement. Laura Maloney, Ex CEO for the Louisiana SPCA said “It’s akin to local police being able to respond to all aspects of the law and not just some.”
This “role merge” might be a new direction for urban animal management in Australia. Could this deliver a “new frontier” and produce “quantum leap” boost of energy into the future? And if so, how might we make it happen.
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